The Black whispered
by Nighthawk Imac
Summary: While on Patrol, the Tuatha de Daanan notices a strange anomonly that could prove more then they bargined for, Meanwhile Kyoko and shinji are getting suspicious over Sousuke's real idenity. Please Read and Review
1. Questions

**The Black Whispered**

**By Isaac M. Zavelsky**

**Chapter 1 – Questions**

Location: _Tuatha de Daanan_, Somewhere in the north pacific

Time: 03:00 hrs (Time zone +10 GMT)

Date: March 10th, 2006

Some four months after the incident on the Pacific Christmas had passed; it was yet another quiet and boring day in the depths of the ocean for the Captain of MITHRIL's flagship vessel. For the past four months she sat in her chair pondering how she lost to Kaname, but in the end, every result or answer she got felt like a dagger in her heart. The lack of activity to get it of her mind was starting to bug her; normally Amalgam wouldn't take anything more then eight weeks for them to decide on another attack.

But it seems for now; their key sources of power had been severed since the capture of the pacific Christmas had been boarded. MITHRIL's intelligence department was working harder then ever to try getting facts straight, they're failure to notice the secret aboard Pacific Christmas and the incorrect details of the Western Pacific Fleet's whereabouts was a massive embarrassment on their part. Theresa had taken some pride in their ability to cloak their location to MITHRIL's own intelligence department.

But for now they had only been busting pirate gangs out along the Pacific Ocean shipping channels; considerably boring work considering the abilities of this submarine. It also left the PRT and SRT teams almost useless.

"Report all stations" Theresa spoke, she could've taken a break anytime in the last three hours, but her ongoing hope for some activity to occur made her push to stay at her post.

"No new Surface contacts, that American Frigate is still 250km away 51 degree's madam" the Sonar operator replied.

Tessa at this time occasionally liked to have the _Tuatha de Daanan_ linger around another ship, particularly so she could have something detected on the radar. Such a childish thing to do with a five billion dollar ship, but nobody else had to know her intentions

"Captain, the American ship is not really doing anything special; do you want to break off course?"

"Okay, Helm…" Theresa looked at the map for a moment, they were 1000km from Fiji and about 3400km from Japan, maybe she could turn around, find a nice island to sunbath on. The thought was somewhat intriguing and enjoyable, but it wouldn't happen today.

"…Helm, come port to 020 and maintain speed at 24 knots"

The course would take her the opposite direction from a sunny beach in the south and towards the Bering Strait in the north. Nothing special was up there; it was all soviet territorial waters, perhaps Theresa would be lucky and by chance run into a Soviet Alfa or Akutta Class attack submarine and maybe tease it for a few hours. That thought felt now more pleasant then a sunny day on a beach; some pressure and excitement to liven up her day.

"Mardukas-san, would you mind taking command, I think ill take my rest now"

Commander Richard Mardukas had arrived on the bridge originally to replace Tessa on third watch at midnight, but her instance on staying on the bridge forced her to remain where she was. Commander Mardukas had enough experience in his years commanding submarines in the British navy to know when it was a good idea to get some sleep; but with Theresa's enthusiasm and the unpredictable natural of MITHRIL's operations department, he could slightly understand her intentions and will

"I think it's a good, idea, you haven't slept at all in a day" the commander spoke quietly, Before Theresa could say so, he added "ill inform you if something happens"

"The Executive officer will now take command" Theresa announced before leaving her chair and the bridge.

Theresa slowly walked down the narrow corridors of the submarine to her private quarters. She felt exhausted for some reason, but having doing nothing all day. She disrobed her kakis uniform and changed into sleepwear, feeling rather tire from staring at blue screen all day. Before she went to doze into a deep sleep, she picked up a photograph off her desk and slowly slumbered towards her bunk, she picked up the picture and held it above her, only seeing the outline of her and Sousuke standing next to each other that time Sgt Major Melissa Mao challenged her to a Arm slave fight.

Staring at the picture she had placed on the side shelf of her bunk, Theresa wondered what that other girl would be doing today to her favorite Sergeant.

Location: Tokyo Jindai Municipal High School, Tokyo

Time: 08:10 hrs

Date: March 10th, 2006

It was yet another normal and peacefully day at Jindai high school; relativity speaking that is. For almost a year now, everyday seamed to be yet another adventure for the students of this school as they would experience some sort of explosion, interrogation, or other militant activity despite the obvious absence of reason for such activates. As weird as these activates were; it seemed that as if nobody was deeply effected enough to stop it, despite the fact that for over the period of one year; it felt like Jindai high had been completed rebuilt twice as a result of these 'incidents'.

Inside the shoe locker room at the entrance, certain 2nd year student of class 4 was laying out some trigger cables which had been attached to a small chunk of moulded explosives on his shoe locker. Automatically anyone who was within vicinity of this are of school decided to go about their business a lot quicker and for this matter take their shoes with them. After some time had passed after the arrival of this student, everyone seemed to ignore the obvious problems that were caused. For the administration and student body council, it was somewhat of a mixed blessing, having bullying and masher rates decline, whist build repair and insurance was on the rise. But what or who was this person that cause this change, who was responsible to all this mayhem and panic? The answer was in the form of 2nd year Class 4 student number 41, Sousuke Sagara.

And like any other morning; this morning was no exception to the rest. Within a few seconds and a loud bang, the main entry to Jindai Municipal High School, was a blacked roomed with the smell of burning rubber and smouldering rubble of were once shoe lockers.

"You war minded Baka!" echoed the voice of reason, Kaname Chidori; who seemed to be the only person in this high school who could never put up with his antics.

"But Chidori…"

"Nobody would ever put anything in your locker! Everyone here knows you you'll never see it, cause you just blow it up before you have a chance!"

As aforementioned, someone forgot an unwritten rule in these school halls, and that was never to give Sousuke a love letter through the shoe locker. For the third time this month, the shoe lockers of Jindai Municipal High School were a smouldering pile of twisted metal and destroyed shoes. All around the epi-centre of the blast, which was the now former shoe locker of Sousuke Sagara; Students were getting off the floor and brushing the soot off their once clean uniforms; two of those people were Kyoko Tokiwa and Shinji Kazama whom were walking in the door when the blast forced them out of the building.

"Calm down Kana-Chan, you'll live longer" Kyoko said quietly,

"I won't! I won't! I WON'T!" Kaname yelled as she continued to shake Sousuke's body by the neck. As if it was like a magic shield, Kaname seemed the only human being to be able to make psychical contact with Sousuke and subdue him. Anyone else would've met their deaths have they even attempted. It seemed a paper fan was the only weapon in the world that could force Sousuke to stop.

"Then hurry up with this, we have classics in five minutes" Kyoko replied.

After some more yelling and strangling, Kaname finally let go of Sousuke and matched with intense fury in her footsteps towards Classroom 2-4. Shinji and Kyoko walked over to Sousuke whom was now sitting upright on the floor.

"Those two sure get along well; at least someone is there to equal Sagara-kun" Kyoko spoke.

"Which girl was it this time?" Shinji replied

"A girl in Class 1-3, just transferred to this school, I don't think she's experience a locker explosion yet" Kyoko talked in a tone that sounded like was conducting an investigation over a murder "I think she obviously was sending a love letter, but she just doesn't know the rules"

"Did you check for a letter?" Shinji asked,

"Yea, its right here" Kyoko took a pink envelope addressed to Sousuke out of her pocket. Recently Kyoko would inspect Sousuke's locker for a letter, as a way of attempting to lower the number of explosions per month. However Kyoko wouldn't really save anything; her tampering of the box would only make Sousuke blow it up anyway. This required quiet observation of his shoe locker in the afternoon and maybe writing a note on his locker every morning to say someone has left a message.

"Who should we give it to; the girl or Sagara-kun?" Shinji spoke as they both walked to class.

"This one is twelfth one we've recovered intact, so we could give it to Sagara-kun"

"But didn't he suspect there was anthrax in the previous five and blew it up in the classroom instead?

"I don't know, if we give it Sagara-kun; even if he opened it, he could just misinterpret it to be a threat"

"But we've got the letter intact, how could he possibly misinterpret it?" Shinji then remembered how bad Sousuke is with Classics and Japanese; having interpreted everything as a military code, disregard what century the literature was written in.

"Then we keep this, as with the others" Kyoko sighed, "then at lunchtime, ill track down this girl and tell her the bad news"

Both of them entered the classroom for classics and took on the embarrassing site of Sousuke cleaning his pistols before class began

Location: _Tuatha de Daanan_, 25km inside Soviet Union territorial Waters

Time: 14:00 hrs (Time zone +11 GMT)

Date: March 10th, 2006

Even though Commander had high hopes of finding at least a Soviet Navy Patrol boat, so far the screen remained empty of contacts. Even with the _Tuatha de Daanan_'s advanced SONAR technology, they hadn't even come across a shark. It was at times like these everyone wished that A21 or some other minor terrorist organization would actually cause trouble. Then they would have an excuse to be under pressure.

It was the absence of even fish that got Commander Mardukas got annoyed. He had the slightly imaginative intention of surfacing the _Tuatha de Daanan _in enemy waters and casting one of Sousuke's fishing line over the side to waste time.

"Any contacts?" the commander asked,

"Non what-so-ever, not even a single piece of plankton floating around" the sonar officer replied

"Check for icebergs, water temperature, any unnatural anomalies"

"Aye sir" both the Sonar and Science Station replied

Mardukas slumped back in the command chair; supposable at any one time, there is 300,000; both civilian and military. How is it they managed to cover 2/20 of the earth surface in water and find only one ship? Were the entire Soviet and American pacific fleets in at their respective naval stations? Impossible, none of the super powers would be even half as crazy to do that.

"Water temperature is five degrees Celsius, two icebergs from the artic reported 250km away, just came inside our sensor range" the science station officer reported "Weather on the surface looks like a storm, heavy cloud cover and some light rain it seems"

Nothing important; everything was plain an simple, maybe they had gone though a time portal to some time 2000 years ago since their broke off with course with the American frigate. Even then, they surreally would've spotted a fishing boat anyway. No, it was just his imagination wildly possessing him; it was yet another boring day on the _Tuatha de Daanan_.

"Sonar contact" the sonar announced "Bearing 025, distance 250km"

Finally, something to amuse with, with any luck; the 'duke' could have another submarine to toy around with.

"Can you identify the contact?"

"Negative, my guess it's a fishing boat or something by its signal strength"

"Sonar, what's the position of those two icebergs at the moment?" Commander Mardukas started to check is surroundings just to see what was there to play with.

"Iceberg 1 is bearing 010 at 230km, and iceberg 2 is…" the science station officer paused for a moment

"Well?" where is it?"

"Sir, Iceberg 2 is Bearing 025, 249.99 km away"

"Double check that…"

"I just did, the target is inside the iceberg"

"Helm, lay in a course for 025, remain at 20 knots only" the command rang out orders to his crew; Commander Mardukas clenched his fist, a ship inside a iceberg? Perhaps it was underneath the iceberg, perhaps a Russian submarine wedged into the ice somehow. The logic behind this was impossible.

"Sir, nothing appears to be under the iceberg, and the signal scan shows that the signal is 25 meters deep into the iceberg on the surface level" the science officer continued to update the commander,

In order to create a 25 meters of ice, it would take 20 to 50 years of natural formation depending on the conditions. A frozen artifact, and a ship no less? It could be anything from a Diesel submarine to a small fishing boat.

"Sir, were not sure why or how, but I think _Tuatha de Daanan_'s SONAR controls might be malfunctioning at the moment"

"What makes you say that?" commander Mardukas wouldn't love to hear this. _Tuatha de Daanan_'s RADAR and SONAR systems were the best available anywhere and their performance factors were yet unmatched; saying they broke down or malfunctioning would destroy the legend that came with them.

"Well, we can confirm that there is an object, but…" the sonar officer remained quiet

"What?"

"The object seems to making some noise, in some way"

Command Richard Mardukas had been in the naval service of some description for 25 years, he had heard and see some weird things in that time; but this one suddenly took the grand prize of being the weirdest. He immediately went to the phone before hesitating for a moment, pausing for a second, only then did he pick up the receiver and then dialed for Captain Testarossa's Quarters.

Location: Tokyo Jindai Municipal High School, Tokyo

Time: 15:00 hrs

Date: March 10th, 2006

After a hectic morning, and another boring of class of Classics; Kyoko and Shinji were again at lunch sitting in class while waiting for Sousuke and Kaname to return from the student council summons. Shinji was reading quietly through his latest issue of _Jane's annuals; Arm Slave Recognition Guide_ as Kyoko came back into the classroom and sat down to her home made lunch she left on her desk.

"Did you send back that letter?" Shinji said still focused on his magazine

"Yes, but the girl was assuming the letter had somehow made it to Sagara-kun, I found her standing exactly where she would be on the letter, she was heartbroken and demanded that 'I give him the letter, instead of hogging Sagara-kun for myself'" While she didn't actually tell Kaname about this; both Shinji and Kyoko started to operate a side operation of relaying the letters and information that had the possibility of misinterpretation, away from Sousuke in a desperate attempt to curtail the amount of unnecessary explosions and interrogations that took place on school grounds.

"My question is, how can one person like Sagara-kun interpret a love letter as death threat?"

"He's full of mysteries? Like why he keeps saying that he'll protect Kana-Chan since the first day when they met, he feels like he has this job to protect her or something"

"But against what?" Shinji replied in succession "Sure, Chidori-san makes a few enemies here and there, but not something that would require a professional mercenary for personal protection"

"Maybe it's the other way around, maybe it's Kana-Chan protecting Sagara-kun"

Shinji laughed, much to Kyoko's disappointment. But Shinji had a point somewhere; Kaname was strong and before Sousuke entered their lives; she had held the title of being the number one most attractive girl you wouldn't want to date. But there had been some serious lapses in the past year where for a week after a certain unknown event; Kaname would be uneasy and very quiet, especially after that trip she took with Sousuke to the 'southern island'.

"I think Chidori-san has actually softened up since Sagara-kun arrived" Shinji noted,

"That's true" Kyoko noted, "But why would she be so understanding about him?"

"I don't know, Sagara-kun has some weird habits and his unexplained absences…."

"Do you think that Sagara-kun goes off the play war on those days?" Kyoko pondered,

"You're kidding right, he plays war here!" Shinji replied, putting down his magazine "and not pretend war, it's like he still is in Afghanistan!"

Just as Shinji replied, Mizuki walked in to the classroom carrying a few bags of lunch. She seemed nowhere near surprised from this morning's explosion. But then again, her shoe locker hadn't once yet had been damaged from any of the blasts.

"What are you two talking about?" Mizuki spoke as she sat down at her desk in front of Kyoko's desk.

"Sagara-kun, why he acts like he does"" Kyoko replied and continued to answer the other question "I suppose it's because of his upbringing, Sagara-kun isn't use to the peaceful lifestyle"

"But since when did he go to a school when your shoe locker was tampered to blow up!" Shinji Replied,

"It's something I've always wondered about Sagara-kun" Mizuki spoke up "How does he get away with it."

It didn't really matter if he would get away with it this time; in another few minutes, Sousuke would probably be walking in to class again like nothing had happened and Chidori would be fuming mad walking right behind him.

"Is it a conspiracy?" Shinji said "Sagara-kun has conducted interrogations, assaults, demolitions, explosions, and carries real or model weapons around, anyone else would've been sent to jail if they did the same, but Sagara-kun seems to get a pat on the back for his work"

"Do you think he bribes them? The principal and the school board?" Kyoko spoke, slightly excited by the thought of a conspiracy.

"Where would he get that sort of money? He doesn't exactly have a part time job, which that we know of" Shinji spoke in a more serious tone. Shinji was now obliviously swinging himself into to his conspiracy nut mode.

"Maybe…" Kyoko also getting imaginative about this "…maybe he's a government agent here to spy on kana-Chan!"

Shinji and Mizuki took a gaze of surprise to Kyoko's suggestion; it made perfect sense, almost.

"Nah, what could Chidori-san possibly have done to have a government agent on her tail? She isn't a global assassin" Shinji replied, "That's something I'd expect Sagara-kun to be"

Before they continue the discussion, the door behind them was slammed open.

"Speak of the devil, here they are" Kyoko spoke in a funny gesture,

As expected, Sousuke was a free man again. He had quietly walked in the wake of Kaname whom was infuriated with the outcome of the meeting. Two other students quickly removed themselves from the path of Kaname Chidori as she made her way to her desk.

"Honestly" Kaname grumbled under her breath "…diligently act of duty…..protecting the school…..OUR best interests!"

"I take it you got off the hook again" Kyoko looked over at Sousuke whom was taking seat at his desk.

"Affirmative, the school directive deemed their was no means to punish me for my security protocols"

"Security Protocols!" Kaname snapped "This is Jindai High, not Merdia Island!"

"Where?" Kyoko asked,

Kaname then suddenly realised she'd accidentally slipped the name of the island where MITHRIL had the Western Pacific fleet stationed, Sousuke's workplace. Sousuke pretended not to have heard that sentence and continued to retrieve his laptop from his bag.

"Nothing…nothing…" Kaname laughed suspiciously,

"Sure…" Kyoko looked at Kaname Broadly before concluding she wouldn't get an answer, "Sagara-kun, where is Merdia Island?"

Kaname dropped her mouth in shock when Kyoko asked that question. If Sousuke was as stupid as he always is and said it was classified, they were done for; there was no way Kyoko would let that down without getting fishy,

"It's the name of the Island resort I took Chidori-san four months ago" Sousuke said in a straight answer without hesitation,

"Okay that makes sense" Kyoko felt pleased and slightly disappointed that it wasn't something that he couldn't talk about, but looked over at Kaname who looked like she was about to have a heart attack.

"Are you okay Kana-Chan, it's like you were expecting Sagara-kun to say something else"

"I'm…fine" Kaname replied flatly,

Kyoto nodded, taking it down as extremely suspicious behaviour. But before they could continue the guessing game, Sousuke's mobile phone rang; almost immediately Kaname knew what this meant and she was angry to the bone.

"Hello…Understood…Route 2B… Level A alert?" Sousuke's tone unusually spiked, making Shinji and Kyoko both notice, "Understood…understood…confirmed, Uruz 7 out"

"Let me guess…" Kaname said in a sarcastic tone

"I'm sorry Chidori-san, I have something important to do, I only have be gone for…" as Sousuke said this, Kaname didn't hear a word of it, instead mimicking what she normally heard, not noticing that he only said overnight and not three days.

"Well have fun blowing stuff up…" Kaname continued her Sarcastic tone, but as she said this, Sousuke picked up his bags and left out the door "…and he's off again" Kaname's tone changed completely.

Kyoko rolled her eyes as the bell rang on time, signalling the start of English. She sat down and in a split notice wondered exactly what Sousuke's secret was.

A/N: Hey all; finally finished the good version of this chapter, hopefully this story will be more successful then _Sakura's last chance in time_, which is still being produced.

Thanks to those to pointed out this misspelling, on closer inspection, one of the jindai high scenes were also mistaken for year 2007, and later it was 2006.

Please review and ill write a new chapter soon.


	2. Myths

**The Black Whispered**

**Chapter 2 – Myths**

Location: MITHRIL heavy transport Seaplane, somewhere above the north pacific ocean.

Time: 17:00 (+10 GMT)

Date: March 10th, 2006

While Sousuke didn't see the urgency of this, he still followed orders to the letter and got to Merdia Island as soon as possible. The radio report of _Tuatha de Daanan_'s find was oddly suspicious. But some merit had come from this; at the same time the _Tuatha de Daanan_ had located the strange anomaly of an iceberg; three Russian Alfa class submarines showed up and were lashing their active sonar out to warn off the _Tuatha de Daanan_ from getting any closer to the iceberg. Apparently the soviet navy were more concerned about what was inside that thing as much as Theresa was when she'd first witnessed the data.

Since that phone call at lunchtime in Tokyo; all Sousuke heard was an A level alert had been called for a rescue mission 'on an iceberg' of all things. But in Sousuke push for answers he managed to get data that MITHRIL's intelligent department had gathered; the entire soviet navy in pacific was rushing towards the diesel submarine locked in the iceberg. But considering the fact the entire submarine was covered in twenty five metres solid ice; it couldn't have been a rescue mission. Something was inside that submarine that required the support of the entire soviet navy, or particularly its firepower.

"We shall begin?" Kalinin started the briefing in the room, "at about 14:00 local, the _Tuatha de Daanan_ had detected an iceberg with what we now understand is a surrounding what we believe is a Second World War ear Soviet diesel Submarine"

"What could be of value inside a 50 year old diesel sub?" Kurz asked "apart from antique torpedos"

"While the intelligence department is uncertain and denying it; Captain Testarossa believes there are two Palladium cold nuclear fusion reactor plants" Kalinin let everyone in the team talk for a second, but no one spoke, he continued to explain "these reactor plants are about the same size of those found in the M-9 Gernsback, but the power output and presumed length of time these two reactors have been in operation would make it as efficient as the Palladium Reactor of the _Tuatha de Daanan_."

Everyone was still in a silent state of surprise. The Palladium cold nuclear fusion reactor was at the very forefront of technology, this reactor was more efficient then either American or soviet nuclear submarine reactors and was almost impossible to detect. Apart from the small ones of the M-9 and ARX-7; there were only two large ship sized Palladium reactor plants in existence, TDD-1 Tuatha_ de Daanan _had the first one and another one was finished and ready to install on the soon to be launched TDD-2 _Pillar of Autumn_, which was destined to serve in the south Atlantic ocean where a vessel like _Tuatha de Daanan _was badly needed.

After the Pacific Christmas incident, MITHRIL's top brass finally decided to build four more of what were now the _Tuatha de Daanan _Class Attack/amphibious support submarines. Despite the objections of the intelligence department; one each would go to the other fleets replacing the outdated _Excalibur _Class Amphibious assault submarine, while the TDD-5 would come as reinforcement for the West Pacific Battle group, which was already stretched thin.

But according the statistics they had received from this iceberg, these reactors were already surpassing twice the life expectancy of the TDD Class Reactors and ten times the life span of a typical third generation Arm Slave.

"Captain Testarossa has made it clear that it's in the best interest that we recover the iceberg or the submarine itself" Kalinin continued to speak,

In the back of the seating compartment, Sousuke and Kurz were sitting down watching the screen. While Sousuke was no doubt paying full attention, Kurz seemed to be more interested in the contents of Sousuke's bag. Ever since Sousuke had his contract changed so he could go home to Tokyo, Kurz used this as an opportunity to get stuff that he couldn't get himself. Every time Sousuke was at Merdia Island or on the _Tuatha de Daanan_, Kurz would give Sousuke a 'shopping list' of things he wanted; it ranged for the latest fads in Japan to groceries and other foods you couldn't find anywhere on base.

Kurz gave him shopping money and constantly offered Sousuke is five of his best magazines from 'Kurz Webber's top secret porn collection'; Sousuke always blankly refused, but did his shopping anyway.

"At 20:00 tonight, _Tuatha de Daanan's_ AV-8's will take off and perform anti-submarine warfare to distract the three submarines, when they do so, _Tuatha de Daanan _will get in close to the iceberg where URUZ one, two, six and seven will jump over to the iceberg and use their combat knifes to cut the ice around the submarine, be careful as to not to damage the submarine itself." Kalinin continued "When you have managed to separate the submarine for the ship, _Tuatha de Daanan _will open up it's AS steam catapult deck and we will store the submarine inside there; once we have captured the target object and run as far south as possible, any questions?"

"Will the submarine fit inside that area?" spoke Sousuke,

"The height of the catapult deck is to the doors is about ten metres; if we are right and it's a Second World War era submarine, it shouldn't have no problems, and if its higher then that, we can lay it on its side until we get back to Merdia Island"

"How come were using knifes? Why not just blast the ice away with our guns?"

"Because of the density of the ice, one hit would destroy the submarine as well"

"Dammit" Kurz replied, "so what are we suppose to do? Cutting through that ice would take at least an hour, maybe two, and that's with four knifes and a their chainsaws"

"Patience is the key, as well as planning" Kalinin replied "In order to get the submarine out as quick as possible; all four AS's need to cut with the long swords. At the moment, Mao's AS is the only one which uses a long sword. We had three more to use, which is why were using a cargo plane instead of the usually seaplanes"

Sousuke didn't really mind the swords, but even with the long swords, it would take ages to finish the job. Sousuke wanted to get this mission over with as quickly as possible; he did say that he would be back by the morning, already he had lost four hours despite the seaplane leaving the moment he arrived at Merida Island. Even in the recently acquired water based equal to its global trotter III heavy transport aircraft, it would take another hour to get to the _Tuatha de Daanan_.

"Captain Tessa has called the level A alert because she believes that this submarine and its contents are of the highest priority. Admiral Borha is supporting this despite the objections from Kalinin concluded "We will be arriving to the _Tuatha de Daanan _in another hour, prep yourself into Arm slave piloting gear, be ready to pilot once we land"

When the Major left the passenger cabin for the flight deck, the 10 men assembled there started to chat amongst themselves,

"Gee, the old mad doesn't ask much…" Kurz joked "just call on us and we'll pull rabbits out of hats!"

"The Major is right; if the captain believes this is important…" Sousuke paused for a second "…it's vital we finish this job and as quickly as possible"

Location: Tokyo Jindai Municipal High School, Tokyo

Time: 15:02 hrs

Date: March 10th, 2006

"Stand…Bow"

"Good afternoon Sensei!"

"Dismissed!" Kaname announced to the class,

Yet another day finished in high school Kaname thought, boring as it may seem but at least there weren't any troubles regarding integrations or some act of terrorism being detected by the School. Kaname thought good of this afternoon, whenever Sousuke wasn't in the country, she felt at ease as the on going threat of Sousuke didn't stress her to tears. Earlier, just after Sousuke left, Kaname had gone off for a few minutes to make a call. Without Sousuke's knowledge, Kaname knew the MITHRIL intelligence department operative protecting her; Wraith, whom after failing to protect her and exposed his failures, agreed in a lucrative blackmailing deal.

If Kaname felt suspicious of Sousuke's disappearances for now on, she could call this second contact and get a better idea on what he was doing. Returning only a few minutes later, Kaname was a little self pleased with herself and somewhat more cheerful in an evil and disturbed way.

"Hey kana-Chan, you still coming with us to go shopping?" Kyoko inquired,

"Yea, I'm pumped to go" Kaname put on a deceiving grin,

"Good, cause Kazama-kun and Mizuki-san are tagging along, if that alright with you"

"Yes, the more the merrier!" Kaname acting very cheerful, suspiciously more then you'd expect from considering her mood this morning

"Okay, okay, let's go"

The plan for today was to start hunting around for stuff for their class excursion to Kyoto in two months time. This had been announced to everyone's surprise a week earlier, and fortunately or unfortunately; Sousuke wasn't present at school when that announcement. Kaname was very worried about what Sousuke would say if she had told him about the trip; it was only in Kyoto after all, but Sousuke could point out a dozen valid security problems with just walking down a street in Tokyo.

The actually reality was the school faculty was very cautious of the going on School trips since the Pacific Christmas incident. The principle was very worried about having a third high jacking, and even more so was being more careful about the possibility that a student might be killed. Ever since the airplane hijacking last year; the principle had been trying to get a straight answer about trying for Okinawa again. Even after paying psychology fees for 200 students and 1 teacher in the wake of the event; parents and the school board felt very scared about sending them off on a plane or boat.

Their also was the Sousuke factor; to the school administration's view, Sousuke should be their answer to protecting the students. The principle was taught a slightly alerted history about Sousuke's past actions as a guerrilla solider in Afghanistan by non less then Andrei Kalinin, who on their paper's was Sousuke's guardian. The principle believed that Sousuke was powerless on both occasions, considering that on one account being absent on during pacific Christmas hijacking. But the principle was seriously considering, the chances that they would be hijacked a third time, and despite objections of the student council vice president, She was seriously considering giving Sousuke Sagara permission to extent his already existing job as school council security chief to a more adventurous role as to establishing and commanding the Jindai Municipal High School Students defence brigade.

"Ooo….that Sousuke…if he…if they…" Kaname mumbled behind her teeth, recalling in her mind something she randomly remembered,

"What's this about Sagara-kun?" Kyoko asked,

"During the meeting today, the president said that Sousuke's request to establish a security force to protect us on field trips was getting a second consideration" Kaname gripped her bag and started to bend it in half, "it makes me so angry that they are even considering such a stupid idea!"

"Now, now, lets just go and get something to eat" Kyoko pointing at the café just ahead,

"Sure, but first I've got to into here" Kaname pointed a pharmacy juts down the street

"Do you want me to come with you?"

"No, I only need some headache tablets" Kaname lied,

"Okay" Kyoko said, in her mind she though something was fishy about that; something was just not right about all of this. From judging Kaname's funny laughs today, then that line about Merdia Island, then how she disappeared for a few minutes just after school. As soon as Kaname left the scene; she turned to both Shinji and Mizuki whom heard that conversation turned to face Kyoko.

"I'm going to see what she is buying; something doesn't sound right about all of this" Kyoko swinging her camera and mobile phone into action. "Just like the plan I said at lunch time"

"Okay" Shinji replied

"Sure" Mizuki said slightly less enthusiastically

Shinji nodded and went inside the café with Mizuki apparently as if they were a good friends all of sudden. Whilst they ordered five milkshakes, Kyoko started to chase after Kaname into the pharmacy store she had just entered. This particular chemist was on a corner and fortunately provided a second entrance were Kyoko could sneak in. As Kyoko ran past the front entrance she easily spotted Kaname down the back end looking at something in particular. Kyoko entered the chemist and walked down another isle, ducking down as to not been seen. Kyoko settled herself when a close as she could get.

Kyoko turned her head and then quickly became suddenly interested in mouthwash when she spotted a pharmacy assistant approach Kaname. She was a middle aged woman, very plump but with a broad smile. Kyoko silently rang Shinji's phone but for some reason it wouldn't connect. In an emergency, she started the record function instead, and just in time to hear the whole conversation.

"May I help you young lady?"

"Yes, I'm looking for birth control tablets…" Kaname replied so openly

"Oh my god, she plans to…" Kyoko's mind yelled inside,

"Planning a wild night with a special someone?" the women replied a little oddly, if it were anyone else, they'd start lecturing Kaname about how irresponsible student of her age nowadays. Also, Kaname seemed a little surprised about the reply, like she wasn't expecting it,

"What are you talking about!" Kaname laughed flatly, "It's just in case I…"

"Well, these are some recommendations for such tablets" the women spoke, handing what was a few pieces of paper,

_Don't ask why I added lines, just come to the counter, one of your friends just walked in_

Kaname peaked for half a second with intense fury before acting normally, who bothered to follow her? Was it sheer luck that another student came into the store? Kyoto was wondering momentary about the possibility of Sousuke and Kaname…wait a second, how did that women know she was going to buy Birth Control tablets? She turned her lead up to look for Kaname, The women had lead Kaname back to the drugs prescription counter and started to pointing out their various, only then did Kaname seem interested in what she was talking about.

Kyoko slowly moved closer to the pharmacy acting like she was looking at baby stuff, then cold and flu remedies, then bandages with intense interest until she could hear the conversation

"…they didn't suspect a thing; Sousuke said it was a resort island"

"That's the official policy that the operations department tell all their soldiers, wherever their stationed, it's either a Resort island or where there relatives live" spoke a slight off tone voice to the women.

"Okay, now where did Sergeant Sousuke Sagara go this time, and what is going on"

"Captain Testarossa ; the Captain of the _Tuatha de Daanan _requested Admiral Borda; Commander and chief of the operations department admiral for a level A alert; that's usually reserved for a rescue mission for a whispered candidate or in the event that a MITHRIL base is attacked." The Pharmacy Lady was now apparent to only Kaname to be the agent from MITHRIL's intelligence department, Wraith. He continued to speak "What our department have heard is that they are being ordered to rescue an iceberg inside soviet territorial waters, but inside that ice is a presumed lost Second World War era Soviet diesel submarine…"

Kaname only nodded her head waiting unaware that Kyoko was leading down and clearly able to hear the conversation behind the counter. Kyoko who was still leading down didn't understand a bit of that the pharmacist assistant said, but it didn't take a genius to know they weren't taking about birth control.

"But why did they call Sosuske in, it's not like Tessa needs him on every mission"

Kyoko cocked her head up in suspicion, that name rang a bell, but what did she have to do with this? Wasn't Ms Testarossa studying in Australia?

"Because the Captain believes they need the ARX-7 Arbalest and its Lambda Driver. It would be essential in this scenario apparently got out of hand, though I don't see a reason for it. Their soviet submarines, not venoms"

Kyoko couldn't understand much of this conversation, maybe Shinji would later; Sousuke Sagara is a sergeant? MITHRIL? Captain Tessa? ARX-7 Arbalest and its Lambda Driver? What did this all have to do with Kaname? Right away, and from experience being with Shinji, it sounded like a terrorist plot.

"Anyway, for now, Sousuke couldn't send a PRT member in his place seeing they seemed to want everyone to steal this submarine, so do what Sousuke said and he'll be back by morning"

"But why; tomorrow's Saturday"

Before wraith could answer that question, a business man walked into the store and was approaching the chemist. The pharmacist lady quickly stopped talking about secret warfare to act like a normal assistant again.

"Here are your headaches tablets miss, that'll be 840 yen"

"That's highway robbery!" kaname replied "fine"

Kaname gave the woman 100 yen and still got the headache pills given to her.

"Thank you very much"

Kaname walked out of the store and walked back to the café. Behind her and still in the shop, Kyoko stopped the recording and ran out of the other entrance and around the back of the building down to the street where the café was. Kyoko made it and sat down only less then 30 seconds before kaname turned the corner and entered the shop

"I'm back" Kaname eying everyone, particularly Kyoko whom looked like she had been running,

"Hey, we bought your milkshake" Kyoko spoke just before she drank her own,

"Thank you" Kaname decided to not to worry about it now, asking them of spying would only blow her cover if they were involved. Besides if they did overhear it, what chance did the other two have in believing it?

Location: Flight operations Hanger Deck, _Tuatha de Daanan,_ Somewhere in the pacfic

Time: 19:50 hrs

Date: March 20th, 2006

Only Less then five minutes after they arrived; Sousuke and Kurz were running as if they were fifty minutes late for school. They had already suited up for AS piloting in their now well recognised black Arm slave anti-shock armour. Down closest to the elevator ramp were Belfangan Grouseaux and Melissa Mao sitting beside their Arm slaves and waiting for their other half of the team to show up.

"You couldn't be any later!" Melissa yelled at Kurz,

"Sorry Sis, the plane ride was slow" Kurz joked, onto to receive a punch in the stomach.

"Enough with the jokes "Belfangan yelled "You three, in to your Arm slaves pronto"

It didn't matter how many missions they had been on so far, Belfangan was having a hard time adjusting to the humorous team he had been given command of. Sousuke jogged lightly to the ARX-7 and boarded his arm slave. Sousuke wasn't partially worried about this mission; the only concern was that the ARX-7 and the other M-9's participating would have a good level of difficulty getting onto a slippery iceberg and staying on long enough to free the frozen submarine.

But what was the purpose of all this? A Diesel submarine from 50 years ago was at the very back end of submarine technology today; compared to the _Tuatha de Daanan_, it didn't even deserve to be in a museum.

"Identify please" spoke an emotionless voice

"Sergeant Sousuke Sagara, identification B-3128"

"Sergeant Sagara confirmed" the A.I known as Al replied "Long time no see?"

"Shut up and get me the data on the iceberg" Sousuke had little love for his somewhat annoying Arm Slave operating system; ranging to weird remarks at mostly inappropriate times to using hard drive storage to store download music. Theresa had stated it in the past that this would be what Sousuke's alter ego may have sounded like; a thought that disturbed both Sousuke and a few others that knew about the Arm Slave and Sousuke.

"You seam tense Sergeant, would you like to have music played?"

"No, if you have downloaded any music, delete it!"

Before they could continue their strange argument, his radio link with the other AS's was activated.

"Uruz seven, are you alright?" Melissa spoke

"I'm fine, Uruz two, what is the concern?" Sousuke replied

"You seem a little anxious tonight, everything alright?" Melissia asked,

"Everything is working normally, health status is acceptable…"

Before Melissa could reply and/or yell at Sousuke; the communications were interrupted by Captain Testarossa speaking,

"This is the captain speaking" Theresa's voice carried though there speakers "In five minutes Uruz 1,2,6 and 7 will proceed to the elevator and proceed up to the flight deck, we are going to open up only the helicopter open access panel and not…I repeat we will not open the catapult deck yet. All units proceed onto the forward section of the _Tuatha de Daanan_ and wait there"

A brief pause was given, but what it more or less sounded like was Theresa drinking water, she then continued, "We will come along side the iceberg and you will have one chance to jump from _Tuatha de Daanan_ to the iceberg. After that, each of you is do remove as much ice as possible around the submarine and retrieve it. When you have recovered the submarine, _Tuatha de Daanan _will come head on with the iceberg and open up the catapult deck. You are then to move the submarine on its side if possible and proceed back to the hanger deck" A long pause came after that "All units confirm?"

"Understood Captain, Uruz one acknowledged" the overall team leader Belfangan Grouseaux replied.

"Understood, Uruz two acknowledged" Melissa Mao replied swiftly

"Understood, Uruz six confirming" Kurz Webber replied with a less then interested tone.

"Understood" Sousuke paused for a moment "Uruz 07 confirmed"

"_Tuatha de Daanan _out" Theresa spoke lastly,

Once the COM link to Arm Slaves was down, Theresa sighed, they were on the same ship but yet since the pacific Christmas. Theresa had a hard time looking at him or relaying simple order acknowledgments. Sousuke then waited, quietly as he reviewed the data on the iceberg and submarine. Inside his mind, he was also thinking about what Theresa had said that Christmas Eve, while over the pass few months it had lost significance, it still pushed him to ask deeper questions about what he was doing.

"Al'

"Yes Sergeant?"

"Can you get me a linkup, private two way channel, to the Captain's view screen computer in her chair?"

"Yes Sergeant, would you like to send an audio message?"

"No, please type and send what I say"

Meanwhile in the control room, Theresa was steadily waiting to make her approach on the iceberg, while reading over the data, the captain sighed thinking about the mission. For the Arm slaves, it would be a rather simple and yet difficult job. The side where submarine was closest to the outside of iceberg had no grip points or any grounding where they could stand while hacking away at the ice, they could go from the top and work there way down and the side had the flat ground was also the most distant point to the Submarine.

"Lieutenant Commander, order all Arm Slaves to commence operation" Theresa spoke

"Yes Madam" Kalinin replied, he then applied his headset and started the mission "Uruz 1 and 2, proceed to primary lift positions, Uruz 6 and 7, proceed to secondary lift positions"

"Uruz one confirm and complying"

Instantly two AS's nearest to the Deck lift stood up and marched to the elevator, Melissa stopped just short of the main lift well while Belfangan's black AS stood in the centre of the lift.

"Uruz 1, stand by we are lifting you now"

Just as Theresa was watching the tower camera looking down on the slowly rising Arm slave, a small window started flashing on the top menu bar.

"Huh?" Theresa silently spoke, opening it assuming it was some random data packet.

_URUZ 7 TDDHQ: Tessa, you sound feeling ill? Are you alright?_

Theresa was quietly surprised receiving a message. Realizing that Commander Mardukas hadn't notice it, she extended the laptop on her chair and started to reply. Meanwhile the rest of the Arm Slaves were being lifted up to the surface deck of the_ Tuatha de Daanan_. Just as Sousuke was started to being lifted…

"Message incoming, text only" Al spoke

"Who is it from?" Sousuke asked

"Captain Testarossa"

"Read it to me"

"Yes sir" Al Replied "TDDHQ URUZ 7: I'm fine, just feeling a little worried about this submarine"

"Al, send reply, same process"

Sousuke started to make his way down to where the other three Arm slaves were positioned was on the smooth surface of _Tuatha de Daanan_'s bow. The helicopter landing deck was closed and the submarine retained its sleek shape, with three Gernsbacks and the Arbalest surfing on its top.

"Iceberg sighted! Dead ahead!" Kurz imitated a famous crow's-nest watchman,

"Shut up Uruz two and focus on your jump" Melissa yelled into her microphone, deafening Sousuke and Belfangan at the same time.

Inside the control room, Tessa was counting slowly down as they approached the iceberg, the portside wing and the portside engine were her main concern, if the turned starboard, like the other famous ship, there was a good chance that the iceberg could compromise the hull plates along the engine room. She was also looking at her screen quietly, until she saw a silent flash on the menu, quietly she opened it

_URUZ 7 TDDHQ: I'll do my best make it as quickly as possible Tessa…No it isn't…Shut up Al and Send the message_

Quite confused about the last part, Tessa was at least glad that Sousuke was looking out for her, in some mild way. Renewed with conference she sent a final reply, and indication request to talk later on.

"Helm, once they jump, all engine to reverse and starboard 30 degrees" Tessa though quietly, if the ship which could reverse out at 10 knots, it would not be able to reverse out at all and the bow of her ship would suffer the full impact of the ice, they wouldn't be able to dive the ship and a high speed escape impossible. Tessa did not want to destroy the vessel she'd designed and had built fall into the hands of soviet navy.

"Tactic and Sonar Stations report" Theresa ordered

"_Tuatha de Daanan_ ready and slowed to 10 knots. The Arm salves are ready to jump" the tactical officer spoke,

"All three submarines are currently running around, we've identified them as the _Borisoglebsk_, the _Novgorod Veliky_ and the _Voronezh_ " the sonar officer reported, "All AV-8's have reported the targets are scared, but we've jammed their radio frequency just in case"

"Good, but just in case, have harpoon missiles in all the vertical launch tubes and load torpedo tubes 1 through 8" Tessa responded " I don't want be caught with my pants down"

While if it was an experienced male captain that said that, it would've made more sense. But a 17 year old girl saying that even if it had the right intentions, it was completely wrong. Everyone in the control room started at Theresa with some degree of humour in their faces. Commander Mardukas sighed as he buried his forehead into his hand before relaying the order. Someone in the control room however had inadvertently switched the radio on again, but only to the four AS's that were maintaining their position onto of _Tuatha de Daanan_.

"I think we should screw up" Kurz spoke, with his perverted intentions advocating making Theresa do exactly so.

"Idiot, we are NOT going to screw up!" Melissa replied with disgust.

"Stop the chatter, the iceberg is up ahead" Belfangan interrupted the odd-couple's banter,

"Jumping in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…"

At the moment of zero; all four of the Arm Slave jumped off their home base and flew high into the air, the suspension systems in the arm salves were consider to most rugged in the world. Next to the suspension system on a 747 or an A-380 passenger aircraft, the Arm slave suspension system was the one of the most vital parts and damage to one would mean almost instant defeat.

Flying up to the peak of their ascent, they all started to worry about the decent to the surface, at the very least; landing a quartet of seven ton machines would break the ice, or completely destroy an AS. With some luck, all of the AS's landed on the top with Kurz Webber being the only exception, landing on the side, and grabbing on to the wall of ice.

"See! I told you, focus on your jump!" Melissa yelled into the radio,

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry" he faked a whining voice,

We'll whatever get your knife out and start digging!" Belfangan spoke,

While the Arm Slaves were starting to make shaved ice out the iceberg, Theresa was holding her breath on the chances of success, they had managed to avoid the iceberg, but now to choose if they had to assist in the anti submarine warfare, or protect the iceberg from capture.

"If those AS get the submarine loose and where not around, they could be in a tight position"

Understanding that in normal submarine and under normal circumstances, considering how far into territorial water they were, the most logical choice was to go attack the submarines, but the _Tuatha de Daanan_ was not a normal submarine, and therefore didn't follow the rules of engagement like Commander Mardukas had expected. If there wasn't three M-9's and the ARX-7, as well as the four lives being left behind; they would be steaming towards the fight, but tessa didn't want to risk it.

"For now circle around the iceberg, if we detect the enemy, we'll be able to hunt them down"

For the first Ten minutes, progress was slow, despite everyone working on a separate section that would all work together, it wasn't helping. Sousuke had already considered using the Lambda Driver; but that would work in this case, And Melissa and Belfangan damaged their swords chainsaw rotary.

"This is going to take forever, we've only been able to get 1/8 the way there and nowhere near removing all this ice" Melissa spoke,

"And I have bad news" Theresa spoke over the speakers "We've got several dozen ships inbound, one carrier, twelve cruisers, and at least two dozen attack submarines"

"Have we tried heating the ice?" Kurz asked, with a glimmer of an idea in his tone,

"Where are you going to find a source of extreme heat" Theresa asked, and then somehow getting a strange idea what Kurz was going to do

"We're in it!" Kurz said. In saying that, Kurz turned his Arm Slave around so the back coolant vents faced the iceberg,

"AI, do something to increase the temperature of the M-9 reactor plant"

"Yes sergeant" spoke the cool female voice Kurz had picked for his AI software. Immediately the M-9 reactor started to heat up as the coolant tubes were turned off. Quickly the heat of the arm Slave managed to reach a point where it was dangerous.

"Now AI, turn on coolant system, but after you vent all that heat, rear accesses only"

"Yes Sergeant" The AI again replied,

With an all might gush, the steam ejected itself from the upper and lower back and considerably more so from the leg connection joint. The ice instantly melted at the ultra hot air burned it into frozen water. In doing so, Kurz's Arm slave had lose its grip on the iceberg as the gripping melted and shattered, it suddenly fell forward and dived into the icy water, narrowing missing a huge chunk of ice that can came off their initial landing.

"Sergeant, are you alright?" Melissa yelled,

"I'm alright, just let me swim around and get back on the iceberg, how much ice came off?"

"About 1.5 metres" Melissa spoke "lot considering, and some off the ice has loosened up now"

"Sergeant" Belfangan spoke up "That is the most inappropriate, tasteless, and wreck-less thing I've seen you do…Everyone keep doing that!"

"Roger" everyone spoke,

For the next ten minutes, Sousuke, Melissa and Kurz all took turns overheating their reactors and expelling the unwanted heat and gases onto the iceberg, which already melted half of the ice around the submarine. While Commander Mardukas felt somewhat displeased with such a rude and inappropriate display of use of Arm Slaves, it surely got the job done. Theresa was going to quietly laughed her head off when she saw Kurz later,

"Another five meters of ice before we've got the submarine free" the tactical officer spoke,

"So how do we report this to our superiors?" Commander Mardukas asked,

"Proof of Global Warming" Theresa smiled to herself,

"This is Uruz one, the submarine is 95 free, requesting that you open up the deck so we can start moving this sucker" Belfangan spoke,

"Alright, Tactical division, order our AV-8's to fallback to meeting point Delta, Helm line us up with the iceberg and slowly approach it head on, stop us as close as you can to the iceberg. When you stop, open up the catapult deck" Theresa ordered,

"Aye Captain" the tactical and helm officer replied at the same time

The _Tuatha de Daanan _Surfaced again and started coming towards the now deformed iceberg. All the Arm slaves were now waiting for their submarine to come in close and retrieve their cargo. With some very careful approach work, the _Tuatha de Daanan_ only lightly tapped the iceberg on the direct bow.

"That's going to ruin the paint job!" Commander Mardukas joked,

"Ok, Load it up and let's get out of here" the Captain spoke, "URUZ six and seven, move slowly your half first in,"

"Okay" Kurz replied, enthusiast after one of his idea's worked"

"Understood" Sousuke replied,

Quickly, and with somewhat great and careful movement, they slowly backed the old diesel submarine onto the length of the catapult deck. Once all four AS's and the Desiel submarine was laid on its side, they all quickly moved to the lift deck.

"All but the ARX-7 Arbalest have been lowered into the hanger deck, catapult deck has been closed, we are glad to report that we had 2cm to spare" Lieutenant Commander Kalinin spoke "AV-8's are halfway to the meeting point"

"Have URUZ seven in as quickly as possible, once inside, submerge to 400ft and go to 40 knots"

"Aye Captain"

Just as Sousuke was being lowered into the hanger deck, Al started speaking

"While I won't question the merit of Uruz six's quick thinking tactics, I will state that is the weirdest use of the Arm slave that I've encountered"

"Is that the reason why you decided to speak"

"That, and I have a message for you. Would you like me to read another love letter aloud?"

"For the last time, it's not a love letter, and no, please put the text up on the screen"

Sousuke gazed at his blurry green screen monitor to read the one line sentence

_TDDHQ URUZ 7: Thank you._

Heya

Well that was a very quick chapter; anyway I hope I can update a lot sooner next time, this chapter having required more focus. This story has already gotten more hits on its first chapter then the latest chapter of _Sakura's Last chance in time_ (while disappointed that my main fanfic is loosing popularity, I cannot complain)


	3. Facts

**The Black Whispered**

**Chapter 3 – Facts**

Location: _Tuatha de Daanan_, North Pacific Ocean.

Time: 22:10 (+10 hrs GMT)

Date: March 10th, 2006

Sousuke had taken about an hour in debriefing, in which everyone had a good laugh about Kurz's successful plan. In the two hours after the end of the mission, the _Tuatha de Daanan_ was in a constant state of alert; retrieving the AV-8's one at a time and staying a constant state of battle alert. Even if the _Tuatha de Daanan_ went as 50 knots, the soviet ASW planes could just as easily catch up. The tension between the crew was still there, while the Arm slave and Fighter pilots had done their job, it was now up to the submarine crew to finish the job.

"Captain, we have exited the soviet territorial waters and the battle zone"

"Thank you, relay orders to the ship; go to secondary level of alert"

"Aye Captain"

Theresa slumped back into the chair; it had been a tough thirty minutes, the three submarines that had been pushed away from the iceberg, took no time in turning around and chasing the _Tuatha de Daanan_, apparently knowing that the iceberg had its buried treasure taken. Unfortunately the submarines couldn't keep up with the _Tuatha de Daanan_ retaining its reputation as the fastest submarine in the water to date.

"Captain, your shift is over now, do you want me to take over command?" Commander Mardukas asked,

"Not quite yet" Theresa continued speaking "I want to be sure that we have no contacts following us"

"No contacts on scope Captain" the sonar officer replied,

"Okay, what is the hull pressure status?" Theresa asked the tactical officer

"Fine Captain, the doors are holding out the water on the catapult deck and we are shallow enough so the diesel submarine would not be crushed under water pressure" the tactical officer explained "if in the unlikely case we do loose a door"

"Very well"

"Captain, I understand your intent that you want to keep an eye on the matter, but you'll be in a lot worse shape if we were to experience trouble and you have not rested" Commander Mardukas spoke quietly "I will call you straight away if we encounter anything"

Theresa thought for a moment and then gazed down at her chair computer screen. Without realizing, she had forgotten about something she said to Sousuke on their private chat. Theresa smiled quietly to herself before speaking,

"Understood Commander, I think ill take my break now"

"Goodnight Captain" Commander Mardukas spoke and then announced "The XO will now take command"

"Aye Sir"

Theresa stood up from her chair, not realizing that she had been sitting in it for four hours straight, it felt a little hard to walk around when your body didn't feel like it, but Theresa managed to move out of the control room. Once she had left the earshot range of Commander Mardukas, she started a more brisk walk towards her quarters. Darting down a staircase and down a few halls; Theresa eventually came up to her room; and outside it as expected, was Sousuke, standing at full attention outside her quarters.

Even thought Sousuke was made apparent that Theresa wanted to be an exception when it came to military code; He still had to apply it when there was a high chance to be spotted by another crewmember. But apart from that, Theresa was still pleased to see her favorite sergeant. Theresa went through all the formal ordeals that she knew Sousuke was putting on just because they were outside her quarters. Theresa instructed him to enter her quarters as an order, and in doing so, ordered Sousuke to relax,

"Why didn't you just wait inside?" Theresa sat down on the couch; Sousuke however remained standing at ease,

"If another crewmember had spotted me enter other person's quarters, the consequences would have been disastrous. Also I believe that hiding in your quarters would scare you somewhat if you entered"

"I'm pretty sure I wouldn't mind it if you just sat on the couch and waited" Theresa giving a hint for Sousuke to sit down with her.

"Very well, ill try to do that" Sousuke replied,

Sousuke still felt somewhere that he shouldn't be so friendly with her superior officer; every nerve in his body said that. But this was Theresa were talking about, not Commander Mardukas or Lieutenant Grouseaux. Some ten years in the military told him to respect her in anyway. He had to try. Sousuke decided to go out on a limb and just sit down on the other couch opposite Theresa so he could still face her. Theresa looked up at him, and by telling the expression was having a hard time adjusting to the idea of treating her as a equally as he treated Kaname.

Before Theresa said anything as a support, Sousuke sat down on the other couch, slightly to her surprise; he did something a normal person would do.

"It's okay to sit down; I'm not treating you like a subordinate for the meantime" Theresa spoke, but it scared Sousuke slightly.

"Yes Capt…Tessa" Sousuke corrected himself halfway through the sentence. Theresa smiled slightly, while he was making an absolute fool of himself acting normal; she still had to admit he was trying. A few minutes passed in silence, inside both their minds, they were waiting for the other to say something,

"Tessa, what was it that you ordered me to see you about?" Sousuke broke the ice first.

During the mission; Theresa had sent him a short message complying him to stop sending messages to her and to meet her later on for a 'discussion about a decision'. Theresa too a quick breath to relax,

"Well, I wanted to get your thoughts about something I want to do?" Theresa spoke quietly, trying as much to be a fluent to Sousuke as she would if talking to Kurz or Melissa. Sousuke sat there as his brain translated it, having no idea what it meant. Once he had an idea what it meant, he stopped being so stiff and started acting serious.

"Okay, what is it you want me to help you with?" Sousuke spoke normally, pretending it was Kurz or Melissa he was talking to.

"I was thinking a few days ago…" Theresa was now shyer then Sousuke had been, but she continued to speak "That I want to take another holiday again"

"To the high school?" Sousuke immediately remembered the dilemma he had faced last time,

"Yes, but I don't want to be there for just two weeks" Theresa explained "I've considered staying there for about three months.

"I don't understand" Sousuke just knew he would have bitten the bullet on this one and accept it.

"You see, I'm still young and to admit it, I'm kind of jealous that you get to enjoy a slightly normal life" Theresa explained "While I have my duties on _Tuatha de Daanan_, you are in Tokyo doing normal things, I just want to see what its like to be a normal person a little more"

Sousuke's lack of knowledge in this area was what disadvantaged him the most; to him, he was there to guard Kaname, but that was it. He didn't have time to play around.

"I'm going to ask Admiral Borha if I can take leave from MITHRIL for that period of time, but I want to know if you think I should do it" Theresa asked,

"Tessa…As someone from a military background, I don't understand what your request is…" Sousuke continued "…But if I was your friend, I would say that you should do what you think is best for you. If you want to come to Tokyo and go that school, you'll have no objections from me, but you must remember that it'll become my responsibility to protect both you and Kaname"

Theresa felt a little better hearing that from Sousuke's mouth then from anywhere else. Sousuke himself was now screaming on the inside, thinking that Theresa's stare and prolonged silence meant that he had just insulted her. In actual fact, Theresa was surprised that he had said something so meaningful and not military based.

"I'll arrange a helicopter transport at 0400 hours, with luck and due speed, the helicopter will have you dropped off at school by the time school starts" Theresa replied coolly, "In that time, I suggest you get some sleep Sousuke"

"Yes Capt…Tessa" Sousuke feeling slightly confused about what to say after that. He got up and left for the door. Theresa did the same and proceeded to the door to see him off. But just as he left he stopped and spoke something

"Tessa?"

"Yes?" Theresa slightly confused turned around surprised.

"Goodnight" Sousuke spoke, before continuing out and closing the door. Theresa stood there for a full minute staring at the door, trying to figure out if that was her imagination or if Sousuke really told her 'goodnight'. Shortly after determining that he had indeed said it; Theresa twirled around until her body met with the floor.

Location: Kyoko's Apartment, Somewhere in Tokyo

Time: 20:15 hrs (+8 hrs GMT)

Date: March 20th, 2006

Since she got home that afternoon, everything seemed to be in lax. In the back of her mind was that weird conversation Kaname had with the pharmacist assistant. What made it weirder was that when she went back to the store later, the lady wasn't there anymore. Nothing seemed to add up today, Kaname's quick disappearance, the chemist, Merdia Island. Then there was the conversation itself; whatever they were talking about, it involved Sousuke and Theresa a lot.

Kyoko didn't know anything military; after all, not every high school girl was expected to go to war. But after two hijacking incidents, Kyoko was becoming more curious about her surroundings, more or less like Sousuke, but on a much reduced scale. Somehow, Kyoko was starting to understand why Sousuke saw everything as a threat; it seems that ever since Sousuke showed up, everything became a threat.

Kyoko crashed onto the sofa and turned over to face upright, wondering. All her high school life she had been the sidekick to Kaname, going on all there adventures, that is until Sousuke showed up; since then he tagged along on their adventures, to some very comic results. But what was so important that Kaname could tell her best friend? Kyoko retrieved her phone from the floor and looked for that recording.

Kyoko listened to it again, for the third time since she got home. Nothing in it made sense, what was MITHRIL? And what was this ARX-7 they keep talking about? Kyoko knew from experience what an M-9 was; it was the type of arm slave that rescued them during the first hijacking. But only Shinji seemed to be excited about it, claiming that…

"Shinji!"

Kyoko stopped playing the recording of the conversation. If anyone knew Arm slaves better, it was Shinji. He'd know a lot military terms then what Kyoko would ever know. Kyoko tapped in Shinji Kazama's number. After some time of ringing, Kyoko finally got a hold of Shinji.

"Hello?" spoke the familiar voice on the end

"Kazama-kun, its Kyoko"

"Wha?" wailed the other voice on the end,

"Shinji, be serious for second, I need to ask you something, you're the only person I know who would know about arm slaves"

"Sure thing, what do you need to know?" Shinji suddenly more confident, knowing this would be easy.

"Is there any Arm slave called an ARX-7 Arbalest?"

From Kyoko's end, firstly there was silence, then the sound of several books been dropped onto a desk, then finally the sound of page being flipped rapidly. Whatever it was, it sounded like Shinji had no idea what it was. Kyoko felt Shinji's confidence slowly slip away as the time bore on three minutes, and then there was silence. Shinji picked up the phone with a worried tone.

"Kyoko? You still there?" Shinji worried that she had hung up.

"Yea, I'm here, why? What's the matter?"

"Oh good…um" Shinji spoke very worried "how exactly do you know about the ARX-7?"

"I heard Kaname talk about it this afternoon, why?"

"Firstly, I'll be honest with you; I've never of the ARX-7 Arbalest before"

"Then why are you asking how I know about it?"

"Listen, I can't talk here, ill go to your place. This is serious stuff were talking about"

"Wait…Shinji what are you talking about?"

Before anything else happened, Shinji had hung up the phone and Kyoko had little choice but get ready for his arrival.

Location: Kyoko's Apartment, Somewhere in Tokyo

Time: 20:25 hrs (+8 hrs GMT)

Date: March 20th, 2006

It didn't take to long for Shinji to hop onto to his cycle and ride down to Kyoko's apartment, loaded with magazines and his laptop, as well as several models of Arm Slaves. What Shinji or Kyoko forgot to take into account was the weather, halfway to Kyoko's place and it started a light downpour. While everything was in waterproof containment, it made cycling fast up hills difficult. But just as Shinji arrived to Kyoko's apartment block, the rain started to pour down heavy.

"You didn't waste time getting here…why are you in your school uniform?" Kyoko spoke inspected a slightly drenched Shinji, both arms loaded with articles.

"Sorry, I had to go somewhere else after we went shopping. Quickly now, I have to show you this"

Kyoko prompted him first to dry off before stepping into her house. It was just lucky her parents were on vacation, or there would be a very unhelpful dilemma. Kyoko was often force by her parents to get a boyfriend, but Kyoko's childish look didn't really give her the leading edge when up against Kaname or even Theresa. Shinji just walking into the house would be a trap if they were home. Fortunately this meant that she had to have Shinji come into his room, they could discuss this in the living room.

"Okay, why did you have to come here to tell me something about the ARX-7?"

"If your saying you heard about it in normal conversation, then its going to rock the entire world of Arm Slaves as we know it" Shinji quickly pulled a magazine out of a bag and open it to were a page was bookmarked "The thing is, the ARX-7 is a myth, nobody knows about it, but there have been unconfirmed reports of an white AS similar to a M-9 being used to defeat that massive one that attacked in the Tokyo bay area seven months ago.

The event Shinji he was referring to was the A-21 terrorist insertion when they used a 32 meter high Arm slave to wreak havoc across a theme park and docks area. What Shinji know was that officials changed the official height of the machine, also considering that no one could find it later; MITHRIL were very quick picking it up and escaping with almost every part of the colossal Arm Slave.

"The official story was that the Japanese land army cleared up the wreckage in that time, but nobody believed it, but this picture here was taken of what a lot think is something called the ARX-7 Arbalest"

"But who though up the name?" Kyoko wondered,

"Some source, but it won't tell us a name, or how he got his hands on it. I think its stolen classified information…" Shinji put down the magazine. "There is a lot of mysteries about the ARX-7, from what I've heard it's only slightly better then M-9, but why would you keep such a thing classified?"

"There is also something else I want you to translate" Kyoko pulled her phone out "Remember when I couldn't ring you to hear into the conversation, well I made a recording instead"

"That's where you heard the ARX-7 thing right?"

"Yes"

"Well, ill transfer it to my laptop and make a few copies of it"

Shinji went through the quick process of transferring the document from mobile phone to his laptop, which to Kyoko's delight or disgust; boasted a very weird looking anime desktop background. Once down, Shinji did himself a favor by covering the background with his media player. For about ten minutes, both Shinji and Kyoko listened to a louder version of the conversation, at the same time; Shinji adjusted the controls on his computer so he could here the conversation more clearly.

At the end of the Conversation, Shinji was very serious about what he heard; he quickly made copies of it onto his USB-thumb drive pocket knife and several more copies on his computer in hidden locations. After that, he listened to some of the key parts again.

"You do not know how much I like you right now" Shinji spoke jokingly,

"Say what!" Kyoko not finding the joke in what he said. Before Kyoko could yell abuse at him; Kyoko got out his notepad and started writing this all down, carefully checking he had them all.

"MITRHIL…the ARX-7 Arbalest and its Lambda Driver…Captain Theresa Testarossa-san…Sergeant Sousuke Sagara-kun…Level A Alert…_Tuatha de Daanan_…Admiral Borda and Merdia Island" Shinji whispered as he wrote each one down

"What are you writing down?" Kyoko quickly forgetting about his remark,

"There all the keywords of that discussion" Shinji's tone deepened a bit, "everything Kaname and this nurse just said has been hot topic on Arm slave online forums and online rumors for well over a year"

"So you're saying this is a conspiracy?" Kyoko asked,

"A little beyond, a little less, disregard the sanity of what about to say but, everything fits into place"

Kyoko looked at the facts herself for a moment, from what Shinji said, a lot of these mysteries were starting to unfold, Shinji regained his laptop and started typing furiously on a word document.

"Think for a moment, for some time before Sousuke showed up, there was some weird organization that was suddenly stopping the guerilla movements in and around South East Asia and Africa. Every time this happened, the United Nations would suddenly say they were responsible"

"But weren't they?"

"That's what I thought, until the Plane hijacking incident" Shinji stopped typing "there are two things that we have to consider"

"Huh?" Kyoko spoke,

"The first major factor was the rescue team; they were clearly using M-9's as combat Arm Slaves. But at the time, the M-9 was supposable still in production test phases, not even the Americans had them. Add to the fact that the United Nations doesn't have Arm slaves or a Special Forces unit like that"

Kyoko was slightly starting to enjoy this side of Shinji, this style of part detective, part weapons expert. Kyoko started to not regret the idea of Shinji coming over all of a sudden, but why was that? Kyoko also wanted the answers and she was becoming increasingly more curious; all of Shinji's facts were starting to fit the puzzle.

"Do you want me to get some coffee?" Kyoko asked,

"Huh?" Shinji stopped and looked up to Kyoko who was looking more interested

"It looks like you and I are going to be researching this for a while tonight, I figure ill let you find out what you can tonight"

"But, won't that mean…" Shinji spoke softly,

"Yes it does" Kyoko changed her tome "which means ill kill you if even come into my room tonight!"

"Understood! I'd never in my life!"

"Ok, you're on the couch"

Shinji continued his work with renewed sprit, who would have though that all his nerdy and Military Okatu would actually let him sleep at girl's place for the night. Kyoko was suddenly wondering if this was such a good idea, all she wanted was an answer to a question, which was 'what is the ARX-7 Arbalest', but it seemed that even she had to agree that it spawned on so many more questions, many of which Shinji was answering, but he still needed to prove it.

"Kyoko?"

"You remember when Kaname went on that holiday several months ago?" Shinji asked from the living room "Do you remember if she took anything with that little camera of yours?"

"Yes" it then dawned on Kyoko that she'd never seen any of the pics of that trip to the 'southern islands'. "Why do you want to see them?"

"Remember earlier today when Kaname and Sousuke had that talk about Merdia Island? Well I've already proved it's not a resort island, so I want to see what I might be, if of course Kaname took any pics"

"Ok, ill get it from my room" Kyoko spoke. Putting down the coffee on the table, she quickly walked away and entered her room. Kyoko wasn't actually concern about Shinji being a peeping tom, it was the fact that her room boasted at very secret collection of chibi dolls and other ultra girly stuff. Kyoko looked around for her camera, Connection cable and a few CD's with dates written on them.

"Here you go; I got some extra pics on those there, but I don't know when I've last used this thing"

Shinji up-linked the camera and stated to scan the folder for files with the date in late august. There was over two thousand pictures on the camera; Shinji wonder how often Kyoko bothered to see those pictures. Finally, Shinji found twenty photos taken during the time period they were looking for.

"Here we go, 0001977.jpg to 0001997.jpg" Shinji copied them into a separated folder on his embarrassing desktop called 'The Shinji files'.

"Let's see them"

"Ok, but I'm guessing that Kaname took these else where, so don't be surprised"

Shinji clicked on all the pictures and played the slideshow. Both gazed on the monitor and suddenly were shocked to find out the real secret that Kaname, Sousuke and Theresa held all this time.

A/N another chapter down, I'm pretty sure that everyone who has seen the first series is going to email and ask me "When did Kaname take pictures on the _Tuatha de Daanan _/ Merida Island?"

The main reason I think of this is that I'm pretty sure that Kaname took a picture of that hanger interior (off screen at least), I'm also assuming that everyone that knows Kaname in MITHRIL (Sousuke, Kurz, Melissa and Theresa, possibly others) posed with her in one shot, whilst in uniform. The rest could be party photographs Kurz may have taken (off screen)

Despite the debate insuring, for the sake of the story I'm going to just say that little camera has a few pictures that compromise the security of MITHRIL and that Kyoko just didn't notice this until now (As for her trigger-happy photographing doesn't really indicate she may look at them later)

Thank you,and please review.


	4. Lies

**The Black Whispered**

**Chapter 4 – Lies**

Location: MITHRIL heavy transport helicopter, somewhere above the North Pacific Ocean.

Time: 04:30 hrs (+10 hrs GMT)

Date: March 11th, 2006

The sun was starting fade the out the night sky and become a new day; when in the mist of blackness a single helicopter roared through the calm evening sea. Inside were two tired passengers and an Arm slave being taken back to Merdia Island. As for Sousuke, at 04:00 hrs departure was calling it close if he was to be able to simple walk into to school like a normal student. Given the time-zone differences, he was given a slight advantage, but it all depended on the speed of the helicopter.

For Sousuke at the moment, his promise to be back by the morning was coming into fruition, in that time, he had the other promise of protecting Theresa if or when she decided to take this extended leave from MITHRIL. Also at this very moment, Sousuke was taking down the new shopping list of things Kurz wanted,

"…can you get me another 30 boxes of them, 4 of those, an entire set of them…ohh! You've got to get me that!"

It didn't really interest Sousuke, all he did was take Kurz's money, go buy this stuff and take it back with him on his next mission. Simply speaking however, Sousuke and a few superior officers on base were getting a little annoyed about the quarter ton crate of luxuries and other things. But Kurz wasn't making only his order anymore; people all over the base were ordering stuff through Kurz, which explained the Sousuke the quantity of the list, also there were some various names on this list of people that Sousuke didn't really notice, one in particular was in fact Captain Theresa Testarossa.

"Have you got that down?" Kurz asked again

"Yes, as long as you have a list I can follow it shouldn't be a problem"

"Well make sure you get everything"

"Is that the only reason why you came along with me?" Sousuke asked as he stored the 3 page list in his backpack.

"No, I came to ask you where you were between 21:30 and 22:44 hrs: Kurz spoke like a police officer.

"The Captain requested I join her in her private quarters" Sousuke replied straightly. Kurz both annoyed he didn't deny it was at the same time a little curious as to what Sousuke did with Theresa.

"What did you to get up to?" Kurz wishing for the most unlikely outcome; but knowing Sousuke, he wouldn't have. Even if Theresa ordered him to, he probably would've consulted a manual or some book.

"I talked to the captain about the possibility of herself going on an extended leave to Tokyo, similar to that last occasion"

"Really now…" Kurz was slightly board of that reply. Kurz however inside was sprung with joy; he never managed to take a picture of Theresa in the female high school, and was overload desperate to see Theresa in that swimsuit he and a bunch of other guys recommended that she wear on her last visit.

"Weather she'll stay with me, or other arrangements will take place is unknown as of yet, but Captain Testarossa said she'd go to Admiral Borha for permission instead of Commander Mardukas"

"The chief of MITHRIL's operations department? That crazy, if he knows; they'd send Tessa out with a whole squad of Arm slaves for protection!"

"The captain said that she'd be able to convince them to let her go on a break"

"Whatever man, seriously you need to stop calling her by rank, just call her Theresa or just Tessa, I do, and I know she wants you to?"

"Captain Testarossa has permitted me to only call her by her first name only when alone and im in her company"

"Oh…this just keeps getting better and better" Kurz spoke. The problem with Sousuke was he didn't know when he shouldn't tell someone something. It seemed unless they said it was classified information; Sousuke would tell who ever asked him, disregard the effects it would have on himself or Theresa. But this didn't worry Kurz; so far his luck in this matter hadn't failed. However, before their discussion could reach any further, a man walked in from the cockpit.

"Hey you two, buckle up and get ready, were about to land" spoke the co-pilot

"Understood"

The helicopter started to make its decent and make its approach towards a half-moon shaped landform known as Merdia Island.

Location: Tokyo Jindai Municipal High School, Tokyo

Time: 08:10 hrs (+8 hrs GMT)

Date: March 11th, 2006

The rainy weather had cleared up slightly since the evening, it was still a dark grey sky hovering over the Tokyo area, with the chance a typhoon may form sometime in the next few days. It felt like doom for the start of the weekend. However the thought was quite the opposite at Tokyo Jindai Municipal High School, a lot of the student were tired of studying for the mid terms and other exams, a weekend break felt like a miracle from above.

"Morning Kana-Chan" Kyoko put on her best smile to Kaname

"Ah, Morning Kyoko-Chan" Kaname spoke; apparently unaware of Kyoko's real thoughts. Inside her mind were one of two things; finding Shinji sleeping on the couch, and the apparent scream fest when both Kyoko and Shinji had forgotten about their little agreement for a few seconds. The second thing came to her mind about a minute after Kyoko had whacked Shinji half to death with a phone book.

Those twenty photographs; all of them a painful strike into her mind a reality she had not known. That last photograph in particular; Sousuke was an Arm Slave pilot? And Kurz and Melissa; didn't they say they were University Students? And yet there they were with 'Captain' Theresa Testarossa in front of the rumored ARX-7 Arbalest, a gleaming white M-9 looking Arm Slave. The very though of an entirely different world that Sousuke kept a secret was mind boggling; all of a sudden, everything made perfect sense, Sousuke's daily disappearances, his weapon collection, the constant demand to protect Kaname, and what did Kaname have to do it?

Not one of the pictures had Kaname in a uniform; the closest thing she wore to uniform was a baseball cap with 'TTD-1' written on it. As many questions were answered, many new questions would form in place. Nothing made sense, the only way to find out was ask, but how do you tell Kaname and Sousuke their big secret was blown? Would Sousuke kill them disregarding the law?

"Hey Kyoko-san!" Shinji spoke aloud,

Kyoko turned to find Shinji darting around a corner with his laptop bag, and wearing the same uniform as yesterday. The thing regrettably was that Shinji and Kyoko were already late when they woke up; it would've been impossible for him to have gone home and cleaned himself up. Shinji looked ahead and saw that Kaname was walking next to her. Shinji suddenly stopped running and started to walk like a normal student, who didn't have a shower or changed clothes.

"Morning Kazama-kun…what happened to you?" Kaname spoke, "Why you all messed up?"

"I fell over this morning" Shinji replied, immediately covering Kyoko with a story. It was highly unlikely that nobody in the school would leave it alone if rumor that Kyoko and Shinji had spent the night in the same apartment and Kaname would probably not stop bugging Kyoko with shame.

"So what did you two get up to last night?"

"Nothing…just a quiet night at home" Kyoko spoke,

"Same…just a quiet night reading magazines" Shinji replied,

"Hmmm" Kaname spoke, turning her attention forward to her homeroom class. It sounded a little odd for Kyoko to be so reserved about herself and Shinji just felt out of place with his scruffy appearance. Before anyone could complain, Kaname opened to the door to a strange sight.

"Sousuke!"

Because of the narrow timing of this arrival to Tokyo, he had been just dropped off on top of the building no less then ten minutes ago; as a direct result, Sousuke was still changing his SRT uniform for his regular school uniform. He was decent, but not to the standards that Kaname accepted.

"Sousuke!" Kaname waited outside slightly flustered to see Sousuke's body "If your going to Change, at least break into the men's locker room to do it!"

No less then thirty seconds later, Sousuke took to get his shirt and black uniform top jacket on.

"Ok, I'm ready"

"Good" Kaname stormed into the classroom and whacked Sousuke with her bag.

Kyoko and Shinji looked on as Kaname inflicted her normal routine of abuse onto Sousuke. But why was he back? Usually Sousuke's sortie missions took days to complete at Kyoko now knew the real reason we went missing. Unless it was just something he had to do at Merdia Island; Sousuke would have to take no less then three days to get back.

Before the argument continued, Mizuki had entered the classroom. After quickly taking a look over everyone, especially Kaname and Sousuke, Mizuki approached Kyoko in the corner of the classroom.

"Hey, I got your text message already, and why is it so cryptic?" Mizuki spoke,

Kyoko immediately silenced Mizuki and gave her a piece of paper,

_We found out what Sousuke really does on all those days he's not here! Meet with me and Shinji after class, its important!_

Mizuki always had something against Sousuke; either for being embarrassment or other reasons. Finding out something about Sousuke to exploit and use sounded like something to good to be true. But for the meantime, it was just best to wait and see, not knowning of what kind of surprise.

Location: TDD-1 _Tuatha de Daanan, _Somewhere in the pacific

Time: 14:30 hrs (+10 hrs GMT)

Date: March 11th, 2006

On the surface; it looked like a black whale was slowly starting to come awfully close the shore of the small half-moon shaped island. But underneath the surface the sheer majesty and beauty of the submarine gave many who knew of it the chills. The _Tuatha de Daanan_ was considered to be MITHRIL's greatest investment, next to the ARX-7. But despite all the kicked out technology and advancements that the ship had, it in reality was her captain that made the difference.

It was in her blood; her father was a submarine commander and even knew Richard 'The Duke' Mardukas personally. It wasn't until the pacific Christmas incident did Theresa know this personal secret that Commander Mardukas had about her father. Theresa didn't ask him to have confirmed the story, but it didn't seem to have mattered. In any regard, she was continuing a very proud tradition.

"TDD-1, this is Merdia Island control, please comply" Spoke a male voice over the radio speakers.

"Medria Island control, this is TDD-1, Captain Testarossa commanding" Theresa spoke in a clear voice from her chair "Requesting permission to dock"

"TDD-1, Permission to dock granted" the voice replied "Please proceed to Dock 2"

Commander Mardukas and Theresa both looked at each other, they had never been ordered to go to docking bay 2 before, and adding the fact that _Tuatha de Daanan_ was the only ship stationed in the West Pacific Fleet made everything more suspicious.

"Merdia Island control, this is Commander Mardukas, Executive officer of the TDD-1, request to know what is in Docking bay 1"

"The TDD-2 has arrived to have her reactor fitted here"

Theresa slumped back into her chair, thinking slightly annoyed. It was odd; she had been at sea for six weeks and hadn't heard a word about the TDD-2 being finished or having her reactor fitted. Was this her punishment for not telling admiralty about her intentions with the Pacific Christmas? It had to be more to that, admiral Borha would've told her.

"Very well, TDD-1 proceeding to docking bay 2" Theresa replied finally "Helm, reset automatic computer approach for docking bay 2"

"Aye Captain"

The helm officer started to type away on a small keypad on the left side of the wheel. Because of nature of the docking procedure, Theresa felt it best that the computer system on the _Tuatha de Daanan_ was better adapted to interfacing with difficult task of docking at Merdia Island.

"Computer reset for docking bay 2"

"Thank you helm, on my mark automate" Theresa looked at the forward screen projecting a countdown timer and a map of their approach.

Merdia Island boasted two very large underground docking bays; both were side by side and had a 30 meter high retractable door to separate them. When MITHRIL first established Merdia Island, their heavy belief in using submarines as their main naval force pushed the designers to build the base to house what were to 'enough space to house 4 Russian Typhoon class Submarines'; the result was two bays that could do easily accommodate a _Tuatha de Daanan_ Class Submarine each.

Geography speaking; the Actual docking bays were at the centre of the island; to take advantage of the hilly terrain on the island to disguise height of several sections of the base.. But the thought of a channel being dug out to allow a submarine access to the bays force Theresa personally force them to do something else. The result was an underwater tunnel, just large enough to fit the height and width of the _Tuatha de Daanan_.

"Mark helm" Theresa spoke,

At the moment she said that, the helm pushed a button and the computer was at the helm. The lights on the bridge went from medium to light blue; an informal way of saying the computer had the helm.

"Y intercept ahead of us in 1.8km Captain"

"Thank you helm" Theresa spoke,

Slowly the black whale that was MITHRIL's pride and joy slowly lumbered into the tunnel towards dock. Because of the short distance between land and the ship's hull, a low roar could be heard slightly more then usual. It was kind of eerie considering the noise sense of what they were doing.

"Science station; what is the status of our cargo?" Theresa asked,

"Cargo is holding, nothing to report"

"Understood" Theresa replied quietly,

The submarine continued onwards until it came to a point where it would be under the island; ahead was a Y junction, each channel leading to a docking bay. The _Tuatha de Daanan's _noted this and started making the proper procedure for going into the second docking bay. Behind the black whale, a massive titanium door started to lower itself over the tunnel; the apparent line of defense from a torpedo attack in case the base was under attack. Once the door had shut, the radio system spoke again

"Merdia Island Control to TDD-1 _Tuatha de Daanan_; Welcome home"

"_Tuatha de Daanan _Confirm" Theresa spoke before standing up with a ship microphone "All hands, this is the captain. _Tuatha de Daanan _is now in docks, all tactical stations disable weapons, Engineering teams and all available crew report to Hanger deck immediately"

"Commander Mardukas, please report to the catapult deck when it has been opened up" Theresa continued to ring out commands,

"Yes Captain"

"Captain, I have an radio message on a the command frequency, its Admiral Borha" the commutations officer spoke, " he wants to talk to you, the very moment you get off the _Tuatha de Daanan_"

"Where is he calling from?"

"Your office"

Everything was getting weird and weirder, first the transfer of the TDD-2 _Pillar of Autumn_ to her base and now the admiral in charge of operations was here; was their something that she wasn't being told? It certainly wasn't going to be a surprise party she knew that, and it was very rare for Admiral Borha to be outside headquarters. Theresa's main concern was to investigate her cargo and find out the read reason behind the two reactor plants.

Unfortunately, if sounded like that wasn't going to happen; Theresa didn't realize how right she was. Location: Tokyo Jindai Municipal High School, Tokyo

Time: 12:33 hrs (+8 hrs GMT)

Date: March 11th, 2006

Class had ended early for the day as was normal for a Saturday lesson and only covered for a few hours. Sousuke had gone off to report to the principle about some certain issues about changing in the classroom while Kaname did her daily stint of hall monitor duty, despite this not being part of her regular duties as the student body council vice president.

In the back of the classroom, three students were huddling around a single computer on a desk. It hadn't been turned on yet, they were still considering going back to someone else's place. But Kyoko and Shinji quite sure about what Mizuki would say if she'd found out about their overnight sleepover.

"So Kyoko-san, what is this about?"

"Shinji and I did a little investigating since yesterday about that thing with Sousuke, and together we found some shocking information, we figured we should tell you"

Shinji turned on his laptop and loaded his windows program, the speed of his computer was unexpectedly slow, because of the lack of battery power left after the overnight stay a Kyoko's house.

"Hang on" Mizuki looked up at Kyoko for a minute "You said that you and Shinji were up all night researching this together?"

"Yes, why?"

Kyoko became increasingly worried about what Mizuki was implying; Shinji not even noticing was more concerned about the amount of power left in his laptop.

"Did you go as low as to sleep with Shinji-kun?"

"WHAT!" Both Shinji and Kyoko yelled, Shinji falling from his chair.

"I guess not" Mizuki replied "Then what did you to do? You can't have worked alone at the same time"

"No, I just slept on the couch…" Shinji replied,

"Shinji-kun!" Kyoko spoke aloud,

"Come on Kyoko-san, if we didn't, we wouldn't have found out about this secret" Shinji defended himself. Mizuki was taken back by the honesty of Shinji. Usually at this point Shinji would've been a coward and tried to deny it. Instead, it sounded like whatever this thing what she was going to see was, made him total re-energize his mind.

"Ok, so what is it that you dragged me out here to see?"

"Ok, I've loaded it now"

"Just Let me…Oh my…" Mizuki's tone suddenly faded as the now famous image of all of Sousuke's friends in his 'other' life was seen on screen.

Just as they were started to view the pictures, Kaname and Sousuke both had entered the class when Mizuki asked the controversial question. Only Kyoko realized too late that Kaname was looking on from a short distance, still enough to recognize the kakis uniform that Theresa famously wore, the secret was out now; but it seemed that it was Sousuke was the last person to realize that he was looking at himself in his arm slave pilot armor, on Shinji's laptop screen.

"What the hell!" Kaname yelled, surprising Mizuki and Shinji,

Shinji immediately shut off the screen my slamming shut his laptop, possibly breaking the screen. Sousuke was i pushed to action by aiming his gun at the trio in front of him.

"What is going here!" Kaname continued to yell,

"We should be asking you!" Kyoko returned,

For what felt like five minutes, everyone stood in silence, Shinji hugging his laptop, Mizuki stood stiff while Sousuke held a loaded pistol at her. And Kaname and Kyoko were locked into a stare that broke all psychical limits. Kaname though in her mind about yesterday; Kyoko betrayed her by following her in the chemist and Shinji and Mizuki were helping her, if they went public, Sousuke's organization would be finished.

Kyoko now felt that the whole investigation was to dangerous, she knew that Sousuke kept live and rubber ammunition for all his weapons, and now knowing it wasn't a fake weapon, it was in fact a real 9mm pistol aimed at Mizuki; one stupid move and Sousuke could kill her.

"Sousuke…" Kaname spoke, interrupting the silence and jumping everyone's nerves "…lower the weapon"

Sousuke did as he was told and aimed it at the ground near his feet. With a huge sigh of breath, the first part of the confrontation was over. But it didn't mean they could breathe easily for now; Sousuke obliviously was not Kaname's Subordinate according to the photographs, he could easily do what he felt was best and kill all of them.

"Kyoko…why?" Kaname looked at her friend,

Kyoko was scared still; everyone in school knew that Sousuke and Kaname were both the most psychically fit pair in the school, and the only two that could keep up with each other's energy. In a fighting situation, it was two fighter's versus two nerds and a drama queen.

"We got curious…but we never thought that it would come to this…honestly…" Shinji got up from his desk and stepped closer to Kyoko,

Strangely Kaname was taken aback by Shinji speaking; usually he would've started to cry at this point. He was either being really brave, or insanely stupid, Mizuki felt like now was good time to faint, but somehow her body said no.

"Curiosity?" Kaname spoke in a lighter and less tense tone "Since when?"

"Since the plane hijacking" Kyoko replied with enriched strength from Shinji standing up to Kaname,

"Ok…I figure its time you knew, no point hiding it now" Kaname spoke, breathing out and sighing "he is really here to protect me from terrorists, originally he was meant to have left after the plane hijacking incident; but he stayed on…"

Kaname looked over to Sousuke who had a serious look on his face, while he wasn't pointing his gun; he still had the impression of killing at the drop of a pencil. Kaname though in her mind why not tell them now; it wouldn't hurt these three being in the conspiracy she hoped, Sousuke would make sure Shinji was in line, and further made sure no one else got curious.

"Sousuke, there is no point hiding it from them, they know now" Kaname spoke with a slight flare of anger "put on the safety lock and tell them who you really are"

"MITHRIL Sergeant Sousuke Sagara; Call sign URUZ 7, Identification B-3128, stationed with the Special Response Team in the West Pacific Feet battle group" Sousuke answered in a monotone voice, which in a way annoyed Kaname.

"Ok…" Kyoko spoke, remembering that this was his serious tone and that Sousuke obliviously wasn't joking.

"Sousuke, is it true…that you pilot an Arm slave?"

"Yes, however I'm not allowed to discuss which kind"

"Would be this one here, the ARX-7?" Shinji opened his laptop and clicked onto the image where a white ARX-7 was clearly visible, behind Theresa, Kaname and Sousuke in the picture. Sousuke couldn't deny it now"

"…it's a prototype version M-9 with some additional features, it's my arm slave" Sousuke lied silently, they didn't need to know anymore then they did.

"Sousuke…forget it, they called it the ARX-7 once already" Kaname sighed, "Listen, everyone, given what Sousuke just said, you need to promise me you wont tell a soul, if this went public, all of us would be in trouble"

"Okay, ill shut up" Mizuki spoke first,

"I'll be quiet about it" Kyoko spoke,

Everyone looked at Shinji whom was the most likely to spill a secret.

"Consider this myth…a myth" Shinji closed his laptop.

"Ok, now who's up for lunch?" Kaname changed her tone suddenly, "I've got a long story to tell you and I'm not going to do it sitting around here"

A/N: wow that what hard, don't be surprised if I recall this chapter. The reason I took some time on this was trying to find a way to break it to them, without Sousuke doing anything.

In other news; thank you everyone who has read this so far, officially speaking this story has now more hits then my other Story _Sakura's Last chance in time _(which does involve FMP too, or the MITHRIL side at least). For now I have to consider the option of abandoning the large story (the hits I'm getting isn't helping me consider keeping it active), also consider launching the other optioned story which is based off Negima, weather I do to not will be considered over the next few weeks.


	5. Answers

**The Black Whispered**

**Chapter 5 – Answers**

Location: Conference room 1-C, Merdia Island MITHRIL base

Time: 16:30hrs (+10hrs GMT)

Date: March 10th, 2006

Theresa was considerably worried about the summons to Admiral Borha. Usually he would open and friendly about something important, but given the fact the message had been somewhat negative. The 17 year old captain of MITHRIL's flagship, the _Tuatha de Daanan_ decided to stall herself, by pretending to see the cargo more important then the summons message. But Commander Mardukas insisted to go see him.

Theresa stopped at the door and straightened her jacket slightly before pausing for a moment. In her mind she was worried at what she could've done to annoy the admiral, was it because of the incident on the iceberg? No one could really tell, but it would've been enough for the Admiral to make her worry.

'Its alright, the admiral must be asking me about teaching the new captain for TDD-2' she thought to herself. Theresa knocked on the door quietly,

"Come in Commander" spoke a gruff voice, it didn't belong to the admiral however. Theresa opened the door and suddenly stowed her fear and prepped herself for the meeting.

"Captain Theresa Testarossa, reporting as ordered" Theresa spoke clearly to the commanders at the table. She looked at them, it wasn't link the mole link room where there was a round table. It was more like a board of inquiry then anything else. On the left was Admiral 'Uncle' Borha, then there was the general of the intelligence department, as well as a two other admirals and in the centre was Sir mollay himself,

"Sir Mollay! I wasn't aware of your arrival!" Theresa sharply saluted

"Captain, please sit down" ordered the intelligence chef spoke, breaking the good mood that spiked in Theresa's heart for a mere second.

"Yes sir" Theresa spoke in a monotone,it felt like facing a wall of daggers about to been thrown at her from where she was sitting.

"Shall we Begin?" Sir Molary spoke,

"We have read the report about your rescue mission you performed last night" Admiral Borha spoke, "and id like be the first to say 'good work'. MITHRIL recognizes its achieving officers and therefore we have come to you with an offer…"

"With all do respect, I wish to remain in the operations department" Theresa replied feeling much better now. Several times in the past Theresa had been offered a desk job in Sydney, or even a chief position in the science and research department. However Theresa had rejected the offers for better and safer work, she felt that she would feel much better in the role as captain of her own ship, the _Tuatha de Daanan_. It was her home; nowhere else did she feel as safe.

"We're well aware of your wish to remain in the operations department" the intelligence director grunted, "We are not talking about transferring you to the science and research department, we are giving you are more important role in the MITHRIL Submarine fleet"

"Between yourself and Commander Mardukas; you two are only experienced commanding officers to serve aboard the _Tuatha de Daanan _Class" Sir molray Continued in a much more positive tone "As your aware, the TDD-2 _Pillar of Autumn_ is now in docks here three months ahead of schedule, what your not aware is that we have in fact; two more of this class are almost finished and having their engines fitted as we speak, TDD-3 and TDD-4 which haven't a name yet"

"When did we manage to increase production?" Theresa asked "when where building _Tuatha de Daanan_, it took over a year just build the main hull"

"Thanks to some new supporters and decreasing activity around the western Australian coast, we can now build two submarines in unison"

"Where do I come into this?"

"In many respects _Tuatha de Daanan_ was a prototype vessel, her hull design, her abilities and her equipment were all experimental" one of the other admirals spoke, "the _Tuatha de Daanan _had suffered considerable damage from the hijacking incident, but it taught us that it should be considered in two major factors"

"Permission to speak freely Sirs" Theresa asked

"Granted…" sir Morlay spoke,

"I wasn't asked to come here to be questioned about my ability to command was I?" Theresa relayed with slight fury and standing "it's because of my tactics that were able to get the job done"

"Sit down commander!" the general almost yelled, "it's because of your 'tactics' that we have brought you here"

Theresa sat down and waited,

"We need you to help us teach the four new captains for the _Tuatha de Daanan_ Class submarine, we believe that your skills are invaluable to be wasted on a small ship"

"Hang on, what do you mean 4 captains? There are only there ships without captains….." Theresa then suddenly felt the tone of her body drop like a bag of sand. Only then now did she realize their intention of her future "you intend to hand over my command to another officer? What about Commander Mardukas?"

"He is getting too old for being a first officer, he will also be in position for promotion, but I will determine to reassign him his own command on a training submarine if deemed needed" the 2nd unnamed admiral spoke, Theresa knew what the training sub looked like, it was a Trafalgar class submarine that sir Morlay had quietly help acquire for MITHRIL. After 24 months of _Tuatha de Daanan_, the training submarine would be an insult to his pride as a naval officer.

"These four people?"

"I picked them out" the intelligence chief spoke,

"Since when did the intelligence department pick out our submarine commanders?" Theresa spoke out,

"Since we had an ear in every naval command office in the western hemisphere; we are lacking in good officers nowadays, we need fresh blood, new minds, fresh ideas…"

"…another hijacking" Theresa spoke under her breath. The air was stale around her mouth, she was being demoted? She was again being trialed because she was younger. She was only 17, but she was the captain of the _Tuatha de Daanan _for two years, she designed the vessel when she was 12, it was her born objective to captain a submarine; why take her best skill to no use?

"To put it frankly, firstly, as of 16:45hrs today, you are Promoted to the rank of commodore Theresa Testarossa" admiral Borha spoke and broke the silence of the room eerie mood.

"Thank you sir" Theresa now knew what was happening,

"Your job will be to continue commanding the base of Medria Island, but you will be in charge of training the new captains on the operations of the ship. But you will not be personally commanding any ship owned by MITHRIL unless give permission by your superior"

In hindsight, Theresa could fail the applicants herself, but it wouldn't give her a command again. She had to face and accept it, she was no longer in charge of her…the vessel, MITHRIL was.

"Commodore, please remove you personnel belongs from the _Tuatha de Daanan_ by 18:00hrs"

Theresa rose and saluted her superiors and left the meeting room before, she quietly composed herself until she was in front of her favorite venting machine near her base office. It was isolated from the rest of building ways and quite dark sometimes, but her favorite drinks were always stocked here, She couldn't contain her anger any further and slammed the machine with her fist. Tears started to drop from her eyes only to hit hard tiles; she couldn't contain herself any further now.

She wiped her eyes with a tissue in her blazer inside pocket and walked away quietly to her office; she had only one person to call now for some comfort, hopefully he'd answer.

Location: Kaname's apartment, Tokyo

Time: 13:22 hrs (+8hrs GMT)

Date: March 11th, 2006

Because of the nature of the topic, Kaname and Kyoko agreed the openly talking about their friend in a café was stupid. So Kaname decided to show some photographs she could show now that three of her friends were in on the secret. Sousuke had decided to go back to his apartment and inform headquarters of the recent complication and informed that he had destroyed the evidence, much to Shinji's dismay.

"Welcome to my humble home" Kaname smiled and the looked as Shinji with a frightening glare "one step towards my room and your history!"

"Understood" Shinji spoke calmly,

It kind of annoyed Kaname that Shinji had for whatever reason grown a spine since yesterday, usually he'd not enter Kaname's street without a good reason. And there was non to back him up for his past visit was when he came….and failed to steal some of Kaname's underwear. Kaname let Mizuki and Shinji find the couch while Kyoko came with her into the kitchen.

"So what do you really want to know about Sousuke?" Kaname asked as she put on the kettle.

"Everything you know" Kyoko replied,

"To be quite honest, Sousuke keeps a lot of his past and real life a secret to me, I'm usually learning new stuff everyday about his part-time job"

"I don't know if you call being an Arm Slave pilot a part time job; and a modified M-9 at that" Shinji spoke, "he must've only started school when we first met him"

"According to Tessa-san, that's actually true" Kaname replied,

"No wonder he sucks at classics" Mizuki laughed,

"Give him a break" Kaname walked out with a tea tray and enough cups for everyone and let everyone let themselves at her cheap biscuits. Once she sat done, she continued

"Sousuke-san is usually off fighting a enemy county every week, and I can't count how many people I've seen him shoot, and according to Kurz-kun, he is the best Arm Slave pilot in the western pacific fleet…" Kaname paused as she saw everyone look at her

"…and apparently an admirer" Kyoko giggled, then paused as kaname glared at her,

"Even if he is an Arm Slave pilot and a solider for an international counter terrorist organization, I don't care for gloomy war minded otaku's like HIM!"

"Nevermind, nevermind…" Kyoko spoke in defeat "speaking of which, where is our war minded otaku?"

"At his home, apparently he has to inform her that you found out…" Kaname was interrupted as the phone rang.

A quick two steps from the couch and she picked up the phone

"Hello..." Kaname spoke, "Tessa!...no, this is my number…..yea, I think Sousuke messed that up to….no he's at his home… no ill get him for you…hold please" Kaname put done the phone and walked out to her front door. Before she could run out and yell for Sousuke, he was at the front door with his laptop and a folder.

"SOUS…oh you're here, Tessa's on the phone, she wants to talk to you" Kaname said casually

Sousuke cocked his eyebrow in confusion. "The Captain rang you?"

"Yes, and she seemed kind of upset, go find out what is going on" Kaname ordered,

Sousuke proceeded as he was told and followed Kaname back to the phone where Kyoko, Mizuki and Shinji were sifting through prints of the photographs. Shinji was absolutely amazed my these; to discover that his close friend, whom up to now pretended to be a Arm Slave enthusiast, was more in fact an actual pilot of one, and not a conventional type 80 like his father unit had. An M-9, a 3rd generation Arm Slave, the cutting edge of weaponry in this field. Of course Sosuske had kept certain features about the ARX-7 a secret, like the even more then mysterious Lambda Drive.

"Hello Captain…I'm sorry, Tessa-san…slow down I can't understand you…"

"He calls his superior officer Tessa-san?" Kyoko grinned as Kaname sweated in embrassment.

"WHAT!" Sousuke yelled into the telephone, everyone suddenly decided to eavesdrop on his phone call. "…they removed you from your command? What about commander Mardukas?...the training submarine?...I see…TONIGHT!...of course not…he gave you permission?...I would be honored…please calm down…ill talk about it later…why not?...please read the report your about to receive, that'll explain everything…I will…ok, please cheer up…"

Kaname heard the last part clearly strike against her heart; Sousuke saying something like that to Tessa? Maybe all the explosions and gunfire from tagging along on some of Sousuke's missions was making Kaname slightly deaf. No, she heard it; Sousuke tried to cheer up his superior officer, an act nothing like the serious sergeant Kaname knew.

"…ok…ill talk to you later…bye" Sousuke finished the phone call and hung up the receiver. "Kaname, can you come to my place by 15:00hrs today, we need to convert it into an civilian apartment again"

"Huh?" Kyoko, Shinji and Mizuki turned around,

Kaname forgot that the trio on the couch didn't know that Sousuke and Theresa shared the same roof every time Theresa visited him. unless you knew about the reality of the 'special relationship' between Sergeant Sousuke Sagara and Captain…Commodore Theresa Testarossa; it looked like a very suspicious scenario. In reality however, Sousuke was more afraid of Theresa then the vice versa. It was perhaps of natural respect for her as a superior officer or the threatening order that Commander Mardukas gave to him once.

"Ok, ill explain this once and once only…" Kaname spoke in a almost monotone yell "Because Sousuke needs to protect his superior officer while she is in Japan. Theresa usually stays with Sousuke in his apartment…but I'm pretty sure that Sergeant Sousuke Sagara wouldn't lay a hand on his superior officer…EVER!" Kaname finally inhaled breath after exerting that explanation in one go.

"Ok…" Kyoko was the first to break the silence. "That makes a lot of sense now"

"Its 1:30 Sagara-kun, are you sure you can get home in time to clean up your apartment" Kyoko,

"Affirmitive, my apartment is on the 7th floor of the building 50 metres north of here"

"That's the building next door!" Mizuki looked intensively at Kaname.

"Hey, MITHRIL bought the place, not me!"

"Sagara-kun, do you want to head back now, I can answer some questions about your past I think" Kaname spoke,

"No so fast, we want to hear it from the horse's mouth! We'll help Sagara-kun as well"

"Sousuke?" Kaname strained her voice,

"It doesn't matter me, if I am able to get my apartment cleaned quicker with assistance, I will be able to get rid of their questions personnaly.

"Alright, Kaname you pack the tea and biscuits, we'll head over now" Kyoko spoke.

"Ok, ok; just be ready for the horror of cleaning Sousuke's apartment" Kaname sighed as she cleaned up the table.

Location: Commodore Theresa Testarossa's Office, Merdia Island

Time: 16:22 hrs (+10hrs GMT)

Date: March 11th, 2006

Theresa couldn't cry here, if she did; her pride would plummet to that of a child. In the blink of an eye, her world was turned inside out. Her command was removed from her, her commanders moved her to a desk job, at least now it was quite possible to go to Tokyo on weekends, but being in a field base meant that was unlikely still.

"Commander Mardukas to see you madam" the intercom rang,

"Ah, let him in a minute" Theresa spoke into the receiver. She grabbed another tissue from a box in her desk draw and quickly cleaned up her face. "Let him in"

The door opened to relieve a very frustrated commander Richard Mardukas. He was still dressed in commander field insignia, despite being demoted to the rank of Lt. Commander half an hour ago.

"In all my years severing in the Royal Navy and MITHRIL, this is an absolute insult!" he spoke aloud as he took a seat.

"If this is about your demotion, I've already promoted your to Commander using my authority"

"I'm not worried about my blooming rank, Captain"

"Its Commodore now, didn't you get the memo?"

"I don't care, your still a captain in my opinion" Richard spoke; quite true considering that Theresa's new uniform wouldn't arrived until Monday, "I just can't believe they removed us from the _Tuatha de Daanan_"

"I suppose all good things have to come to a end" Theresa sighed in a defeated tone, "2 years in charge of the _Tuatha de Daanan_; that's about right sum of time an American or Russian commander is allowed is given command of a attack submarine"

"Captain, get a hold of yourself" Richard yelled, "It isn't over, there has to be a way to get back your command"

"With respect" Theresa raised her voice "I've already asked the admiral before he left, he is refusing to change the decision, nor is any of the other chief commander. I have researched every rule in MITHRIL's regulations, there is NOTHING I can do without stealing a ship. Commander, please report to the _Tuatha de Daanan_'s docking bay and oversee the unloading of the cargo before you commission with the ship has expired"

"What about you?" Commander Mardukas asked "where are you going?"

"I'm going to go visit Tokyo within the hour, I need some time alone to myself to think about this"

Commander Mardukas knew that this was actually interpreted as a visit to Sousuke's apartment; twice this happened, Zero times did he like it. However Sousuke was proved dependable enough for him to feel at ease about Theresa going for a visit. Given the turn of events in the last few hours, Theresa was already surpassing her breaking limit for stress. A weekend ashore wouldn't hurt her.

"I'm sure a weekend shore leave will help you clear your mind up" the Commander spoke "when you return, ill have another talk to you about this matter. In the meantime, tell the sergeant that he should treat you with more respect now of your new rank.

"Very well" Theresa spoke relieved slightly.

Once the door was shut, Theresa sighed a breath of relief. "Well now that 'dad' has approved, I should start making arrangements" she thought as she started making arrangements for her trip.

Location: Sousuke's apartment, Tokyo

Time: 14:22 hrs (+8hrs GMT)

Date: March 11th, 2006

"FN P-90, SIG 550, Steyr AUG, SIG P239, PSG-1…oh to be me right now…" Shinji spoke drooling over a box load of guns in the corner of the apartment. And not just the simple 9mm gun Sousuke had on him, he all the weapons to big to fit in a school bag found their place here.

"Yea, if I was you, I'd stop admiring Sousuke's collection and help us, you're going to end up with the end of one of those pointed at you" Kaname joked.

"Fine" Shinji replied dejected,

Sousuke confiscated the weapons from Shinji's arms and continued to hide them in the closet before locking it with a key.

"…so what happened then?" Kyoko asked while sorting through a box of table clothes and curtains.

"Well…I was 16 when they asked me if I wanted to join MITHRIL's SRT team, and that's when I first met Kurz and then 2nd Lieutenant Mao"

"What about Tessa-san?" Kyoko asked with interest "when did you two first meet?"

"When she was presented the ship at the commission ceremony, she initially inspected the SRT and PRT teams, I'm not sure what kind of impression I gave her, but it seems that it impressed her somewhat" Sousuke answered in a monotone voice "I believe it has something to do with the fact that myself and her are the same age"

"I see…" Kyoko felt bored with that reply, Kaname however knew some different versions of the story from Melissa and Kurz. Sousuke's version of events usually were devoid of things like feelings or non-senseless motions, to Sousuke, it was strictly business.

"What made Tessa-san suddenly want to visit you?" Kaname asked,

"Tessa was promoted to commodore" Sousuke explained,

"Isn't that a good thing?" Kaname asked "then why was she crying?"

"I suspect it means she can't command a submarine anymore" Shinni guessed,

Sousuke and Kaname both turned to Shinji, who quickly apologized. Kyoko and Mizuki also stopped their actions and waited for shinji to explain how he got the answer right.

"…how did you know that?" Sousuke asked,

"Guess?" Kaname sighed. Then she decided to try something and continued to ask "then explain to me why she would be removed from command?"

"Well, traditionally; Commodore is a rank higher then captain of a single ship, and lower of rear admiral. Usually the rank allows the command of a small fleet of vessels or command of a fleet base. I suspect that MITHRIL follows this same othodox"

Kyoko and Mizuki silently nodded as their geeky military otaku friend continued to talk. It was considered best to let Shinji continue talking until he had finished explaining. Kaname nodded; amazingly managing to get in most of what he said and made sense of it.

"So basically, it's not considered a good tradition keeping letting a fleet commander's control over a single vessel, this person usually stays at base and controls movements from the fleet base" Kaname replied

"To put simply yes, if Testarossa-san is the Western Pacific Fleet's CIC. Her role would be to remain at the fleet base, not go out on deployments on a single vessel, unless it's a scenario where she needs to be there in charge of fleet movements…"

"Ok Shinji, you can stop the otaku-ness now"

"But I don't understand" Sousuke thought aloud "Theresa has been the sole commander of Merdia Island for 2 years, why change her role now?"

"Well…we'll find out soon enough Kaname patted him on the back.

Location: Docking bay 2a

Time: 17:22 hrs (+10 hrs GMT)

Date: March 11th, 2006

"Whoa she's a beauty" Kurz whistled at the sight as the old diesel submarine was positioned in the storage pool in front of _Tuatha de Daanan_.

"Be quiet Idiot, we have to open her up" Mao slapped her subordinate over the back of his head.

"So? It's just a matter of opening up the hatch and saying hi to whatever is inside this"

Apart from some relative puncture damage on the starboard fuel tank. The submarine was in mint condition. The insignia on the tower easily identified her as a Russian Submarine; still adorned with World War Two era markings.

It wasnt a risky job. For the last 2 hours, the antique diesel submarine was slowly it inched up and over the side of the _Tuatha de Daanan_'s portside and onto the ground cradle for the submarine, then it was moved forwards into a holding bay where a small submarine could be lifted out of water for repairs. Now it rested here in the water again where the cool water protected the reactors aboard from overheating.

Alongside the submarine and in a dingy, 4 SRT soldiers were about to board the submarine.

"Ok, URUZ 2, 6, 9, your up" Kalinin spoke from the dockside

"Do we really need guns? And oxygen tanks?" Kurz asked,

"The oxygen inside is stale and most likely toxic and the guns are there to provide us with a camera view and to help you 'unlock' any doors inside"

"Fine, fine"

Kurz, Yang and Melissa climbed up to the conning tower and into the bridge and waited for the personal clearance for Kalinin.

"Alright" Melissa put her masked on and took a deep breath.

"Alright" Kurz and yang spoke as they put their mask on.

Kurz got onto the deck plate and started to unbolt the hatch. It hadn't been closed like normal; it also had a plate of armor blotted on top as well. It started to quirk them of the possibility that whatever was in this thing wasn't meant to be opened. But none the less this was why the entire available SRT and PRT team was in the hanger ready for anything. But nothing could survive for almost 65 years in a submarine.

Eventually the armor plate had come off; much to the strain of Kurz who was exhausted with removing the bolts.

"They sure tightened this thing up" Kurz joked.

"Shut up Kurz" Melissa spoke as she managed to get the hatch lock moving.

"Aye dear sis"

When the hatch finally opened with a loud crack, yang started too decent into the heart of the old steel shark. With the exception of the loud thud that Corporal yang took with the final 5 steps of the ladder, the entire of docking bay 2 was silent.

"It safe, come on down!" Yang shouted from below,

The command room was a mess, considering all the movement the submarine faced. The floor was scraped with museum relic maps and general equipment from the darker parts of Soviet naval history.

"Look at this place" Kurz turned on his rifle's flashlight and looked around the control room. "Everything here is a collector's item"

"Yang, see if you can collect some of the maps and data, I think the science and research department will be interested in all this" Melissa ordered.

"Roger"

"Kurz, you head towards the engine room where I signal was found, ill head to the torpedo room for the other, keep the com clear unless you find something interesting"

"URUZ 2, what's going on in there?" Kalinin interrupted.

"Nothing sir, we've managed to secure the control room. URUZ 9 is cleaning up the control room for the SR teams"

Kurz walked down the extremely narrow passage way. Looking around in every door, as expected, not even a skeleton, it was like everyone abandoned ship in a hurry.

"Hello, anyone home?"

"Kurz, shut up and keep looking" Melissa yelled back over the com channel. She'd reached the end of the submarine, nothing but antique torpedoes.

"Whatever, its not like ill be able to find anything inters…"

"Kurz what's wrong?" No Reply came "URUZ 2? Respond"

"Yang! Melissa, get down here!" Kurz finally came back, but his voice sounded like he was panicking. Kurz never panicked in battle, so whatever he'd found, it was serious.

"I'm on my way" Melissia replied, she started rushing down the length of the ship; jumping through bulkhead doors and past the control room. Yang met up with her and both started running down with the guns at the ready.

In the crew bunks, all the bunks had been folded away and way lay in the middle were two massive Torpedo shaped objects in the middle. Melissa raised her FN P-90 level and ordered Yang to move into flanking position.

"Kurz!" Melissa yelled,

"I'm here" Kurz spoke from the floor "I just got zapped when I touched those things" he pointed at the tube in front of him. Each one was frosted over with ice and melting water.

Melissa looked over to the torpedoes, each were twice the size of a regular torpedo this ship carried. So whatever it was wasn't a weapon.

"Ma'am, look at this" Yang yelled from the engineering room. "I found the generators"

Melissa helped Kurz up and started walking down the passage, underneath her was a large power conduit and a cooling pipe.

"Here they are" Yang looked around, two simple cylinder cans, but the readings indicated this was definitely the reactor plant, exactly like _Tuatha de Daanan_'s. It scared Melissa to think why Soviet Russia had a Palladium fusion reactor plants.

"Ok, we found the reactors" Kurz spoke, "but what in those torpedoes"

"Beats me" Yang said, "Coolant tanks?"

"Too big to be conventional or even nuclear torpedoes" Melissa spoke,

"…and touching them gives off an electrical shock" Kurz reminded everyone.

"Kurz give me your lighter" Melissa spoke.

"Oh, sure" Kurz looked in his chest pocket for a old metal lighter. "Here"

Melissa started to light near the surface of the tube and started to melt the ice. It was slow with a conventional flame, but it started to melt away.

"Here, this lighter is slightly hotter" Yang spoke, having come back from the engineering room. Melissa swapped the lighters for yang's new one. Like he said, it was way hotter, instead of a dull oil flame; it ejected a solid blue flame as hot as a gas flame. Quickly it started melting away the ice.

"Yang, take over, I need to radio Kalinin" Melissa spoke; But before she could speak to her commander, a whole side of the torpedoes ice suddenly slid off and crashed onto the floor. Instead of a complete steel tube, the upper side was glass.

"What was easy" Kurz spoke before pausing "Holy mother of…" Kurz spoke aloud,

"What is it Kurz?" Melissa spoke turned around, "What the…."

"URUZ what, what is it?" Kalinin finally broke silence of the three soldiers stare,

"Sir, you won't believe this until you see it" Melissa replied,

Inside steel coffin was a girl.

A/N: Hey everyone, I'm back. University has been keeping me on my heels, so this is a lucky shot to get this thing finally out.

I don't expect to make a new chapter within another month, or until at least late June. But please stayed tuned.

Anyway, for now, enjoy and thank you.


	6. Lonely

**The Black Whispered**

**Chapter 6 – Lonely**

Location: Sousuke's apartment. Tokyo, Japan

Time: 17:30hrs (+8hrs GMT)

Date: March 11th, 2006

"Thank you for helping the otaku out" Kaname said to Mizuki and Kyoko,

"What about me?" Shinji demanded

"All you did was drool cleaned Sousuke's guns"

Shinji slumped in embarrassment. Inside; it was hard to tell that it was Sousuke Sagara's apartment anymore, instead of the guns lined up against the wall and the simple fold out table and chair. There was the right kind of furnishings that a single guy would expect to have. Sousuke has wisely acquired the extra futon from Kaname, reminding himself that he didn't usually keep spares on him all the time.

"We'll be going now" Kyoko replied "say hi to Tessa-Chan for me?"

"Okay, see you later" Kaname waved at her departing friends

The trio started walking down the hall. Kaname subsided her waving and closed the door.

"Well, that wasn't too bad, huh Sousuke"

Standing there at attention was Sousuke who simply stood there during the whole conversation.

"So, shall we go shopping?" Kaname spoke "Tessa-Chan is going to be here in half an hour, you don't want to serve her beef jerky for dinner do you?"

"Negative, usually when the Captain….Tessa visits, Kurz or Melissa bought extra goods, I'm not aware of which products are bought to make teriyaki stew"

Kaname sighed and mumbled 'incompetent' under her breath "Alright, lets go to 7-11, if where lucky, we'll be cooking it by the time Tessa arrives"

Location: Docking bay 2a, Merdia Island

Time: 19:00hrs (+10hrs GMT)

Date: March 11th, 2006

"So what now?"

Inside the submarine, which was now being unloaded by SRT personnal, the commander of infantry and Melissa's URUZ team were standing around the twin cans, both containing people. Almost identical in appearance, with the exception of the hair, the first girl had long Ash grey blonde hair like Tessa, down to her waist; the other girl had jet black hair of equal length.

"Who do you think they are? Whispered?" Melissa spoke,

"Remote chance, we need Commodore Testarossa to verify"

It was kind of hard for the commander of the base, considering she'd given herself approval for a weekend in Tokyo. Only admiralty was the only group that would be able to call up Theresa, and only in an emergency. In the meantime, it was up to the Commander Madukus or Kalinin to decide the fate of these two people.

"I don't know URUZ two" Kalinin spoke, "66 years they've been here, and we don't know how anything about cryogenics; only that guy from the Indian Ocean fleet would"

"We'll wait for commodore Testarossa to decide, in the meantime, I want this area sealed off, and this discovery considered classified material"

"Yes sir" Melissa spoke,

Kurz walked back to the twin coffins, to him, they were pure beauties in glass, not a single flaw on there bodies in even the German pervert's opinion, they were perfect. Exactly why they were there was only to the knowledge of the people trapped inside there.

"Kurz, get away from them" Melissa yelled at Kurz "besides…I bet anything they had work done on them"

"Right, 60 years ago?" Kurz cocked a rebuttal

"Come one, Kalinin just told us we have to go to Tokyo and get the Commodore"

Kurz nodded and walked out and proceeded to exit the vessel. Melissa looked very worried when she saw the twin coffins with the women, only Theresa would know what they were, and unfortunately she'd have to answer their question.

'Poor Tessa, she can't even have time alone with Sousuke without being called back' Melissa thought to herself.

Location: Sousuke's apartment. Tokyo, Japan

Time: 18:30hrs (+8hrs GMT)

Date: March 11th, 2006

Kaname figured that for a commanding officer of the MITHRIL Western pacific fleet, Theresa could at least be on time for dinner. Kaname and Souske managed to go down the local 7-11 two blocks down and buy all kinds of what Sousuke defined as 'luxuries', it seemed that unless it was jerky or medical supplies, Sousuke could define even a bottle of coke as a luxury.

Kaname took special care in picking out stuff for Theresa, on her last visit; Sousuke hadn't bought a single thing normal for the MITHRIL Captain to eat. It wasn't that Sousuke didn't care, or was being disrespectful, but that Sousuke; after one year, had absolutely no idea how to act like a civilian.

"Do you suppose MITHRIL delayed her flight?"

"No, that wouldn't have mattered; even if the plane left an hour late it'd be here by now."

"Yea, I can't doubt MITHRIL, but then there is the given factor how quickly can she get herself lost in Tokyo…" Kaname burst into out in a weak laughed,

"That's not funny" Sousuke rebutted sourly

"Commodore Testarossa is a capable Navigator and deep water tactician, I'm sure she couldn't have lost her way"

Before their argument could go any further, a mobile phone started ringing, at first neither Kaname or Sousuke went for their pockets. It kept ringing, both unable to reconsiders the ring tone with their mobile. It was ringing to the sound of the godfather theme

"Kaname, isn't that your phone ringing?"

"No…" It was then Kaname realised something she'd forgotten "Sousuke, it's your phone, I forgot I changed the ring tone for you"

Sousuke nodded and in a second retrieved his phone in his pocket.

"URUZ Seven reporting…" Soususke calmed answered the phone, it didn't take to long before Sousuke immediately started to panic from the voice on the other end "Where did you say you were?"

"What's the matter?" Kaname asked as Sousuke paced for a footlocker in the back corner of the bedroom section.

Sousuke was opening the footlocker with one hand as he heard what Kaname could make out as a young girl screaming or running as fast as she could.

"Understood, ill be there in 2 minutes… take cover until I arrive…URUZ seven out" Sousuke hung up the phone and retrieved his handgun and two spare clips. Despite the time; Sousuke was still dressed in his school uniform, Kaname somehow convinced him to stay in the uniform as his SRT uniform wasn't as pleasing to look at then the standard men's uniform.

"Sousuke! What's going on?" Kaname asked loudly, Sousuke no realising she'd asked him a question. He spent no further time and rushed out the door, Kaname left confused and with no choice but to follow in pursuit. Sousuke and Kaname didn't use the elevator, it was too slow; instead, they literally bolted down the stairwell as fast as they could. Sousuke led with handgun at the ready, followed closely behind by Kaname, panicing in her own right at what the military otaku was doing,

"Sousuke! Where are you going?" she puffed as they ran onto the street and started running towards Sengawa train Station.

"The commodore is in trouble!" Sousuke replied simply,

Kaname heard this and suddenly felt renewed with energy and continued to trail in Sousuke's path, it didn't take more then a second for Sousuke to deploy himself to the aid of his commander. To Kaname; it seemed that only Theresa being in trouble was what Sousuke feared the most. Kaname thought herself and feared for the safety of Kaname's whispered companion

It took only five minutes, three more then what Sousuke promised, but they arrived to the station, it was already past peak hour and the masses of people going home from work had all but left Sengawa station. It wasn't a particularly large station itself, two platforms, the kind of stop express trains passed. Sousuke slowed down to a walk and he stopped breathing heavily. He silently started to scan the surroundings of the area with his eyes, ears and that certain 6th sense that he had acquired on the battlefield.

"Sousuke, what are you…"

"Quiet!" Sousuke whispered angrily, "Stay here", I'll be right back"

She was about to hit him for telling her to shut up before they heard the noise of a lady screaming. Sousuke quick on his feet started jogging closer to the source of the noise. Kaname didn't see him disappear as he blended into the dark shadows of the building, Kaname followed in the direction she knew he went,

Theresa didn't know how she got herself into this mess, just half an hour ago; she'd gotten off the train and was looking at a map to figure out where Sousuke lived. To be honest with herself, she'd forgotten everything in terms of originating herself around this suburb, or this city for that matter. Tessa had decided against two armed escorts as it would attract attention to an enemy, if they were watching.

She hadn't notice the guys approach her. At first they were being as kind as possible with the lamest pick up lines possible, all of them, were high school punks, and telling by the uniform, weren't from Jindai, but somewhere nearby. When Theresa flatly refused their offer, it was then they got nasty. She ran as fast as she could from them, but in reality only went around in a circle, forgetting her luggage, absently forgotten, she conceived a plan to rescue her bag and catch another train into central Tokyo. She'd gotten back to the bag, but no trains were coming in an hour.

Now fallen down and surrounded by the three punks, she could only wish for a miracle.

"Lookie here" spoke the first goon "Fresh meat"

"Yea…a babe in the woods I think; Blondie here doesn't realise who she's messing with"

The first goon pulled Theresa off the floor from her braided hair, Theresa complying to them. The guys started to laugh crudely, scaring the defenceless commander into tears

"Hmmm, we're going to show you a good time in Tokyo…" the first goon said as he pulled out a switch blade,

"Oye!" yelled a familiar voice to Theresa's ears "Let her go!"

The lead punk suddenly surged in anger inside, being interrupted in the middle of his fun, by what he heard appeared to be some stupid kid tryng to be brave. The punks all slowly turned, still holding Theresa by the hair.

"What the hell do you want!" the second punk yelled

"Realise the woman, or I will not require to use force" Sousuke replied sharply, standing his ground and not flinching

"Hahaha, what's this!" the lead gang lower his arm and Theresa with it "the schoolyard hero? Want to protect the maiden?" the guy spoke in a hiss high voice

'I cannot fight them, they could use the capt…commodore as a human shield' Sousuke thought before he spoke "this is my final warning. Realise the woman or ill be left with no choice"

"Screw you kid, I haven't seen you before, but ill tell you now, we outnumber you three to one…and this is none of your business, so get lost!"

"It is my business"

"You asked for it then!" The lead punk had had enough of him and yelled in anger, ordering his two accomplices to attack Sousuke. To the untrained eye, it looked like Sousuke was as good as dead at this point. However, Sousuke wasn't your normal person, these punks not even aware of the true force that he hid.

Sousuke ducked as the first person took a swing and in an instant, triped and winded him with his legs triped the punk left in an imaginable shock, the punk flew for two metres before crashing face first onto the ground. The second punk stopped short as Sousuke sprung forward and with a solid strike, impacted and shattered the jaw on the punk with the force of a lead pipe. Before Sousuke could focus on a second offensive shot, the first punk grab him from behind, and the second punk charged forward, one hand holding his broken jaw.

Sousuke wasn't a wrestler, but for his age, was a quite capable hand to hand warrior, he had fought North Korean, Russian and very type of terrorist in the world. These punks were untrained, unfocussed and most likely incompetent in fighting. Using their numbers and size to scare anyone wasn't a tactic Sousuke noticed.

Sousuke lifted and catapulted the first punk over him, unaware of his targeting; the MITHRIL Sergeant managed to perfectly focus the impact point of the skull of the guy he was lifting to collide with second punk's face. The mess of the two formally powerful punks crashed head on basically lost energy to attack Sousuke. Both bodies feel ti the ground and remained still.

Sousuke turned to the lead punk left bedazzled as he held up Theresa again the hair. The punk didn't believe what he'd just seen. His two accomplices were on the ground, to what look liked they were basically taken out and killed. He knew that together, they were the most powerful gang in the Jindai area, and yet some unknown just wiped out two thirds their force. He was now as good left, with nothing to but this girl this guy seemed keen on acquiring. With an instant, he drew a pocket knife from his pocket, extended the blade and tapped it on left side Tessa's neck.

"Don't move you little turd, one move and I'll cut out your Girlfriend's voice box!"

Sousuke calmly stopped. Knowing that in a terrorist situation, he was now going from a petty effort to a serious attempt. He gazed sharply towards Theresa, getting her eyesight to meet his. Theresa had practiced this stare with Sousuke once and could tell with his eyes what he was saying.

'Tessa, please don't move' he though in his mind, Sousuke calculated immediately the distance and margin for error he had, the window of the attack, the positioning of the knife was lethally positioned; it wasn't on the voice box or the spine, but he could slash both and kill Theresa almost instantly, the quality of the blade however wasn't all that great, which gave Sousuke confidence in his next move.

"There you are you war minded Baka!" came the loud noise of another familiar person

"Kaname-San!" Theresa yelped in panic

Sousuke quickly used this moment as the punk and Theresa were both confused; lighting fast, he retrieved his handgun from behind him and took one randomly guessed point blank shot at the distance Tessa's neck and the hand of the punk. It felt like time was slowed down for only that time, the punk noticed the gun the moment it fired, reactively stabbing Theresa. But to no success, he didn't feel the weight of the blade sinking into the girl's skin; instead and at the same time, felt a sharp pain in his lower stomach surge.

The punk sounded like he was chocking as his grip on both Tessa and his pocket knife was realised. Tessa dropped and quickly jumped out of the way as the punk slumped to the ground with one hand holding the point of his body that felt the pain. From what Sousuke rightly assumed; the blade metal wasn't very high quality as it had completely shattered when the bullet pierced through the small knife. Considering the speed of the bullet it broke the blade and the knife and the bullet's remains were now in his lower abdomen or if he was right; only merely left a burn mark and some scratches.

"Tessa, are you alright?" Sousuke looked down as he approached the downed punk and helped his commanding officer up.

"I'm fine…but he…did you just?"

"No" He then turned to the punk on the ground "but as I had warned you, you could have prevented defeat had you simply complied, let it be a lesson for future reference"

Sousuke turned and directed Theresa to go to Kaname while he collected her thinks on the station platform. Tessa didn't like Sousuke ordering her around, but she knew it was in her own safety and he had justified the fact that Tessa was vulnerable without Sousuke or someone from MITHRIL to take care of her. Kaname just stood there completely confused; all she remembered was the punk on the ground was threatening to kill Theresa, and the next moment she was being helped up by Sousuke while the punk had been shot.

"Kaname-san…I'm sorry about all this" Theresa crashed into Kaname, she wasn't exactly crying, doing her best to suppress her feelings. Sousuke returned with a wheeled suitcase and a smaller handbag, notably Testarossa's property. Kaname gave a look to Sousuke, still no understanding of what just happened. Obliviously Souuske was saving Theresa, but was it a case where it was required to use force or was it him just over reacting? Kaname didn't have an appreciative view of the knife the punk was holding, so it looked like Sousuke shot him out of spite.

The trio left the punks as they were, someone would come by later and report this. They were all still alive anyway. But it wasn't their injuries that Sousuke was concerned about now, Sousuke spied at the point of where the knife was on Tessa's neck, even with the main blade gone, whatever was left was only able to leave shallow cuts from the punk's attempt at 'killing' the female commander.

To Sousuke, even a slight cut was considered a failure to him, the job he had was to protect his superior at all costs, he now knew in the after effect how dangerous his stunt was and that if he hadn't aimed right, he could've shot Theresa in the head; a quick but vain death. For now Sousuke sighed, both girls looked at him as Sousuke approached Tessa and asked her to lean her head to the right. Kaname noticed the wound as well and gasped slightly.

It was merely a cut, it wasn't life threatening and the only fear was if it left a mark on Theresa's white skin. Sousuke sighed again,

"I apologise for my crude and wreckful actions Te…commodore" he spoke finally,

Theresa was left with her heart dropping with hearing that word from Sousuke's mouth, she then immediately knew why he suddenly acted like this when she felt for herself the wound on her neck. Theresa was merely glad that Sousuke came to her rescue, a scratch was nothing but a side effect.

"Kaname, can you take her things, I'm just going to bandage this now"

"Oh…sure…" Kaname replied,

Kaname took the suitcase from Sousuke as he took other minute applying bandages from his mini medical kit continently located in his pocket of the jacket. Sousuke noticed that Theresa was trembling, but it was misinterpreted from being cold, it was merely the fear she still had in her.

"Here" Sousuke then took off his jacket and draped it over her body. It felt warmer, and somehow helped her calm down. The trio left the station, Sousuke carrying her carry bag while Kaname handled her wheeled back and Theresa walked on her own between the two.

"What happened?" Kaname finally asked,

"I had gotten off the station to go to Sousuke's place, but I kind of forgotten where it was…"

"Jeez...why didn't you just call us?" Kaname spoke up; Theresa blushed in embarrassment for not thinking of that.

"…Well, I wanted to try get there under my power, but then those guys showed up, they then chased me out of the station, but I decide to go get my luggage…then I was cornered…then Soususke came and got rid of two of the punks in a fight, then he shot their leader just before he stabbed me with the knife…"

"Are your crazy!" Kaname looked over to Sousuke "this isn't like William Tell; what would you have done if you hit Theresa!"

"I know it was irresponsible, and I know that my superior officers will have something to say about it, but I had to act fast" Sousuke replied "but fortunately, I managed to not fatally wound the commo…Tessa" Sousuke switched back to calling her by nickname

It felt kind of glad that he used her name, but it felt more that was because an old lady was eying them.

"Kananme, despite how it looks, I can trust Sousuke with my life" Theresa finally replied, interrupting their argument,

"But Tessa I…" Sousuke was cut off

"Sousuke" Tessa spoke as she turned before hugging him "it's only a scratch…don't blame yourself, and that's an order!"

The rather complex scene in front of the three followed for a few more seconds before she Souuske patted her head, Sousuke realised Theresa and picked up her carry bag again.

"Let's go…I have dinner waiting for you at the apartment…Tessa"

After all that had happened to her today, this piece of news was a relief to her. It was the signal that she could finally relieve herself of the duties of being commander of the MITHRIL west pacific fleet and be a normal person once again.

Location: Docking bay 2a, Merdia Island

Time: 20:21hrs (+10hrs GMT)

Date: March 11th, 2006

Because of the nature of the cargo onboard the submarine, MITHRIL had put on literally every spare hand to put up a security detail around docking bay 2a. To the clear majority of the personnel on the base; the contents of this small camber remained classified, only a few knew what was truly inside the chamber, and in itself, only a select few themselves knew the true nature of the what was inside the chamber.

For the moment, they couldn't do anything without the aid of a whispered, like the commanding officer of the base, whom was conveniently holidaying in Tokyo. Kalinin had already issued an order for a certain two SRT soldiers to go to Tokyo and recall the commodore. In the meantime, those select few that knew waited and feared the worse out of what these could these twin perfections could do. For the moment, Kalinin had visually confirmed himself one of two facts; they existed. The other was there was a remote chance, but they would be alive however, nothing indicated the fact they were alive except the bodies hadn't deteriorated.

As Kurz put it, they were merely sleeping beauties waiting to be kissed by the knights in shining armour. Of course there was a degree of concern to why they were put asleep in the first place. If they were indeed whispered, why did Russia get rid of them? Kalinin thought about his history for a moment before answering his own question. Russia must've feared that Germany would be able to capture the two girls and convince them to work for Hitler. The laboratory must've been quite close to Norway or somewhere for Stalin or whoever was in charge of the operation to order an entire submarine to be set afloat in the Kara Sea with the two girls inside.

The laboratory must've been bombed out, thus discontinuing on the whispered's experiments which would've proved time consuming and resource wasting. But in order to not have them captured, they were sent to sea and somehow preserved until the war was ended. But after the war, people must've forgotten about them, and so 60 years past until the present day when MITHRIL found them. Now, they were determined to meet them and awaken them from their six decade slumber.

Inside the submarine was a lone guard, URUZ 10 or Yang. Originally he had been assigned to guard while she was en-route to Souuske's apartment, but a followed direct order from the commander in charge of the west pacific fleet changed that. While no lights; all that illuminated the former crew quarters was the eerie glow of the two caskets containing the girls. Inside and underneath each girl was a strange mat that was formed fitted each girl, although from the looks of it, they were same mould. However, the mattresses glowed. An eerie light blue from each one, it couldn't have been a regular light.

Now that the ice had been removed, the entire coffin was now clearly describable. It was still a cylinder, or sorts. The glass was one clear panel of glass more wide then high, on the edge of the panel was some interesting inscribing. What appeared to be Latin or ancient Hebrew, the inscribing ended up being was one long sentence each side of the glass. The metal case was the weirder thing. It was not heavily nor was it weak, all over the top was again more inscriptions. They weren't understandable to anyone on the base.

The only people Kalinin knew could understand it was a commodore Testarossa and another whispered stationed with the Indian Ocean fleet.

"Attention solider" sounded the familiar voice of another SRT solider,

"Lieutenant Grouseaux, Sir" the young corporal saluted,

"Don't worry about that stuff Yang; at ease" the officer spoke, "I'm here to relive you of duty"

"Yes sir" Yang spoke as he lowered his rifle "so what do you make of this?"

Grouseaux turned to inspect the twin sleeping girls, their bodies silhouetted by the glowing mattress; it have them a deathly look when he looked at them in this state. Naked, frozen, and pale, he wasn't surprised if they were dead and this was actually their tomb. Even so, the mere fact the machines were still running and the fact their bodies weren't just bones left him to believe it wasn't. The only real mystery like so many others whom knew asked was; who were they and what were they doing here.

"I'm unsure, but whatever and whoever they are, they have a lot of explaining to do" Grouseaux leaned on the end of the casket and then looked down at something. "Did you have a look at this?"

On the end of each casket was a spiral like sentence that centered some kind of coat of arms or religious symbol, at the center was a name in several languages.

"Yea, I thought it was some kind of activation spell or something…" Yang joked half blankly "but it looks like the place for their tombstone"

"Indeed, it certainly looks like it" Grouseaux placed his rifle over his back and crouched down to read the inscription properly, it was Latin or ancient Hebrew, but as he blinked his eyes, it suddenly looked differently, he could understand it a if were plain English, certainly looked tht way. He started saying it allowed,

_Here in eternity of time the daughters of the creator and first whispered. Born to service and maintain enforcement of the population of this soil and sea for the time remaining in an eternity. The life of white and black are kept within this casket to return to morality when the sons and daughters of the whispered have become one with their mother and father and creator._

_White of Peace and eternity. Black of fear and time. The souls of perfection await to serve only the true keeper of justice. _

'White and black' Grouseaux though, then as another moment past, suddenly boat shook. He grabbed his rifle and leveled it as the two caskets suddenly glowed gold around all the inscriptions. Yang and Grouseaux backed away from the coffins as they suddenly ejected steam or icy frost from sealed space between the glass and strange metal.

"Alert!" Yang yelled down the length of the submarine to another guard in the control room,

"Alert!" yelled the same guard upwards to the control tower, at the same time a siren went off echoing loudly throughout the docking bay.

From the dockside, commander Madukus and Kalinin were standing next to a table reading the maps found in the submarine when they head the alarm blaring. Immediately they dropped the old documents and ran with to 2 other SRT men to a waiting dingy. A quick minute later, they were succumbing down the ladder of the submarine and rushing towards the location of the coffins.

"What happened!" Madukus yelled,

"We don't know sir!" Grouseaux said as he continued to point his rifle at caskets "I looked at the inscription on the end, somehow I could understand it and then…this!"

Yang looked around the back end of the tubes to see that the pipes had all shut down.

"Sir the reactor isn't feeding power into this! They aren't in being frozen anymore"

Before they could react; the glasses suddenly let off another gush of, freezing cold steam, almost hitting Yang in the face. Instead it applied itself to the piping behind him; he turned to notice the blue ice covering the thing. Yang turned and tapped the thing with his rifle, surprised that the lead pipe suddenly broke apart like ice. The steam stopped gushing out of the two caskets and remained silent for a second. The two guarding SRT men, and two officers watched on as the mechanical noise of hydraulics lifted the glass off the two coffins, exposing the girls to the outside air for the first time in over six decades.

"URUZ one, URUZ ten, hold position" Kalinin barked their orders

Two more female PRT soldiers entered the room with rifles at the ready,

"Team ruby, stand down" Grouseaux order his troops

Commander Madukus stood on as he saw the white haired girl blink her eyes and look upwards, then over at the black haired girl whom was still asleep.

"Call a medic" he ordered to a PRT solider,

Yang approached the blacked haired girl with the gun till pointed at the ground. At the moment they tried to focus on the status of both girls. Unceasingly trying focus attention both as they starting moving their limbs and getting a feel for where they were. The white haired girl realised then where she was and looked over to her 'sister'

"They have finally found us" spoke the voice of the girl; in plain english, it was of the most angelic sounding, comparable to something softer then Theresa's voice. She then looked downwards, then noticing the people in the tomb, to the white haired girl's right was three men, two were armed with guns, while another looked like to be a superior officer. At the same time, the black haired girl saw to her left and to her silent surprise were two female soldiers and a older man, looking down at her body.

"Your right" spoke the voice of the black haired twin.

They lay down silently waiting for their captors to approach or say something, the white girl then lifted herself in sitting onto her bed, moving her body properly for the first time. Somehow not noticing she was completely naked, she scanned the room to see the six people in it. She then quietly looked down to her sister who was now also getting up.

"Do you speak?" the white haired twin spoke towards the group, before noticing the guns that were pointed at the ground, somehow expecting them to be pointed at her. Why did it seem these people though to require such weapons?

"Yes…we do" Commander Madukus was the first to speak, "We don't know how this happened…but your caskets opened and…"

The girl stood up for the first time and stared at the group, she noticed they were all military, something that hadn't changed since she went to sleep. She then noticed something weird about these people, all of them were different, one was Chinese, one was English, one women looked like she was from Russia, the other from America and the old man was defiantly Russian and the last person was from the middle east.

"Who are you?" she asked pointing at the British naval commander

"Commander Richard Madukus, MITHRIL west pacific fleet"

In the time of her thinking, the black haired twin had arisen and joined her sister staning at the end of the caskets. The stood completely bare and looked like they had died already, staring at the group of soldiers who started back in fear and awe. The black haired twin then noticed the absence of county patches, in place was another emblem.

"Which county is MITHRIL belonging to? The Soviet Union or Germany?"

"We do not belong to any county" Kalinin replied,

The silence strained the room immensely, Grouseaux looked around at his troops; they had their guns at the ready, they could tell the new PRT troops were scared witless and were trembling.

"PRT 22, 23 lower your weapons" he ordered,

The white haired girl saw on in what she believed was amazement as him and the three other troops slung their rifles over their backs. The black haired twin decided to ask the question;

"You are fearful of us, yet you do not open fire, why is that?"

The question was painful, and hard for everyone to answer. Madukus though in his mind how much he wished Tessa was still on base, one sight of her; maybe they would be helpful to cease this painfully frighting confrontation.

"It is our orders to not fire"

Both girls looked at each other before nodding, the look on the faces looked complex, as if they were expecting something wrong.

"What is the date?" they both asked

"March 11th, 2006 AD" Commander Madukus replied "you are in the same submarine we found you locked away in when we found you a day ago, you are at MITHRIL's west pacific fleet naval base, according to the information we found in the bridge; you have been asleep for 66 years, 2 months and 13 days…"

A/N: well sorry for the wait, but its finally airborne. I'm kinda hoping the final part works, given that I was trying decide if the girls should know where and when they were or if they should be confused like hell.

Anyway, keep reading and review and ill write as fast as I can

Republic of Imac/Nighthawk -117


	7. Decided Tactics

**The Black Whispered**

**Chapter 7 – Decided tactics**

It wasn't like if was their fault, but she wished that Sousuke never opened that door. A recall order; the painful reminder that even as the commanding officer, even she couldn't have shore leave, without being interrupted. At first, this action not only annoyed her; but outright gave her the initiative to wonder why she even bothered to go to Tokyo at all; it was only bound to happen in less then a few minutes after she arrived.

Not less then a mere hour after their ordeal at the station; the three teenagers were sharing a meal for the first time in a few months before they got a knock on the door. On the other side of the door were five agents from the intelligence department were present, ordering their superior officer to come with them back to the base immediately. It was like a painful insult to all the hassle that came with her just getting here.

But it wasn't like Theresa wasn't expecting it, MITHRIL wasn't like a normal nine to five job with weekends; it was a constant level of alert, at any time of the day, at any time of the year. MITHRIL was an army and they didn't call it quits at 5pm. But it felt like life was teasing her now; even after the heroics that Sousuke performed for her, it all meant nothing anyway. She couldn't even stay the night. Although Sousuke wouldn't be disappointed; he felt more relieved then anything else.

The annoyance of her early recall was quickly erased however when she communicated with her base about why she was being dragged back to the office. She could've kicked herself for not being present at the time when the steel tubes opened themselves, and their claim that they were probably whispered? It was amazing how so much could happen in one afternoon.

Now she was in a private jet flying to the topical island office that was her life and prison from the outside world. She tried to hide her input emotions of annoyance as much as possible; although she did this quite badly enough that the flight crew were choosing their words carefully.

"Commodore madam, would you like some tea?" the stewardess asked

"Yes thank you" Theresa replied, with a slight touch of fake calm in her tone.

She continued to read her report from commander Mardukas regarding white and black. At the moment, they were in the hospital labs getting rest, but at his recommendation and 20 or so years of constant suspicion, he posted guards at stations all around the labs. Theresa wondered why he did that, was it his fear of the unknown or something. She couldn't blame him, as long as the girls he talked about didn't actually react to it badly.

Some thing however got her quirked about the details however. Both of the whispered didn't even seem to know when then were put into what the scientists had determined as a cryogenic freezer chamber. The girls hadn't even been tested or talked to yet, once the formalities were over, the girls were hastily taken to the hospital wing of the base and given careful medical checks, clothing and bedded down, with advisory that they were waiting for the commanding officer of the base to arrive back as soon as possible.

She was curious to meet them, both her head of naval operations and head of SRT operations were telling her that they had all the hallmarks of a whispered, but to not provoke them; no tests of any kind were performed at all. Theresa was glad they decided to wait who knows what kind of damage they could've implied if they did perform tests, and what of they weren't whispered? Just who could they be exactly?

Before the commodore could slip into another gaze out of the window, the stewardess came forward again with her superior officer's tea.

"Commodore madam"

"Thank you corporal"

She dismissed the stewardess and continued to gaze out of the window; it was 9pm local time, a dark and clear night sky, just like before when they first acquired the strange ship in the iceberg. Back then she was excited after such a long time to be doing something other then bored in her command chair bored stiff and chasing after fishing trawlers.

Then like a flash of events, she lost her command, promoted to a desk job, went to Tokyo and back, and learnt of a secret cargo on the lost submarine. Life was full of surprises; sometimes she just wished that she didn't have the luck of getting all the bad ones.

Location: Shinji Kazama's apartment. Tokyo, Japan

Time: 20:06hrs (+8hrs GMT)

Date: March 11th, 2006

If you were an anime otaku, you could've sworn that he was a gundam fan. If you were a computer nerd, you could've sworn he was a computer manic. If you were anyone else, you would've sworn Shinji Kazama was crazy. It wasn't like he cared what other people thought about him, Shinji had already come to the conclusion that no girl from his high school would ever step into his room anyway.

He always liked this sense of security; his room was a dedicated shrine to Arm slaves and military technology and his weak sense of shamefulness if a girl did see it made him try his best to avoid anyone female coming here. It was hard to tell that Shinji's bedroom was actually habitable; his bed was hidden under the hundreds of Arm Slave models and military magazines that he was possessed to collect.

Shinji sat down and logged onto to his computer to being his usual pass on the forums to scan the latest news. At the same time, he checked out his email inboxes. Ever since that strange night at Kyoko's place; he had been querying everyone about the mysterious white arm slave he knew himself was called the ARX-7. He viewed it as a personal right to research more into the rumours about the mecha that his undercover-agent-of-a-friend was piloting.

While all his online buddies were curious to why he suddenly was asking into the most mysterious arm slave myth of them all; they did as all arm slave fans did and look for the relevant information. Shinji opened up the first email; it was his friend d34lt4117. His email reply was short, just that finding data on the white arm slave was hard to find, as its sources kept disappearing over night.

Shinji then opened the .zip file containing all the downloaded information that could be accessed. It was quite a lot, most was repeated information on the same events. Shinji first looked at the events surrounding an event in Tokyo with a terrorist cell known as A-21. It took him almost an hour to sort the data out. Nobody had ever bothered to actually clean it up at all. But in defined detail, there were pictures, both blurry and distant, of a strange white arm slave.

He compared it to the pictures he had acquired from. While Sousuke destroyed his evidence on the laptop, he didn't know of the USB thumb drive, and the various CD copies of the same few pictures. Shinji then flicked through them for a moment, until he found the one with Kaname and Sousuke where the former was in the cockpit of a white looking arm slave while the latter was sitting on the arm joint just to the left.

Well, it confirmed it; Sousuke was the mysterious pilot that all arm slave fanatics would love to meet. Well, now he could believe anything now; his best friend was a secret agent, a girl had invited him to stay overnight at her place, that cute looking exchange student was the commander of a nuclear submarine, what other surprises would he discover soon? No doubt there were so many to start from, and it seemed that he had a lot to cover.

Before he continue his night routine of evening buzz on the IRC channels, his mobile phone rang, he read the screen for a moment, it was Kyoko calling,

"Hello, Shinji?"

"hai, speaking"

"Oh good, are you busy?"

"No not really" Shinji tapped a few random key stokes to pretend he really was. It wasn't that Shinji didn't want to talk to Kyoko; it was that he couldn't talk to girls without reverting to technical babble. Well, he had to at least take a chance, today was full of them, and so far he had managed to pull off each one, why stop?

"How can I help you" Shinji started

"I wanted to thank you for helping me figure out their secret"

"Sure…" Shinji was stalled for time, figuring out what he had to say "anytime"

"We made a good team figuring out what they were up to" Kyoko continued

'What is she on about?' Shinji wondered in his mind, it sounded like Kyoko didn't know what to say either, why was she so damn shy in front of him? Isn't it meant to be the other way around?

On the other end of the line, Shinji's assessment of Kyoko was almost dead on. The reality of the matter was that Kyoko wanted to thank for defending her and Mizuki, but she somehow couldn't come to say it. It just felt hard to say it. Not that it was impossible, just hard to imagine, even after she saw it first hand.

But that wasn't the only thing that was worrying her, even with the rush of finding out this big secret, she suddenly wanted to learn more about this strange world that Sousuke worked in, and who better to ask then the resident military wannabe otaku. However, it seemed hard for Kyoko to ask, you could blame her impression of him for that, a weak, scared human, who always cowered in fear when Kaname asked him a question or got angry at him.

You couldn't blame him, his conditioned reaction formed as a result of years of being a bully victim; so much for the son of an Arm Slave division commander, and a nerd otaku to add to that. But Kyoko couldn't complain about his ability to look for answers, and he was perfect in co-operation when they looked for the information.

"The thing is Shinji…" Kyoko said "I'm kind of interested more in Sousuke's life in the military; I was wondering what you could tell me about it"

'Your kidding me; what kind of set up is this' Shinji thought, 'since when was Kyoko interested in the military?'

"Sure, what do you want to know?"

Depending on which end of the conversation, it became an awkward mix of careful contrast as Shinji explained some of the basic details of the arm slave and how to pilot them, he didn't go into details that she wouldn't understand, and he both felt kind of annoyed and edgy on how he described the whole thing. He explained every answer to her questions in basic detail and in words and terminology a five year old could understand.

On Kyoko's end, she could tell that Shinji was trying to simplifying it down for her, but it helped her actually understand it. Shinji was careful to not mention a lot of things about the arm slave that he figured that Kyoko would get the wrong idea about. Like computer engineers of a previous generation, a lot of parts on the arm slave had weird names that didn't even relate to the part that they were named for.

After a good hour, it was starting to get late; even Shinji was surprised as their conversation started to flow more smoothly for a while. Eventually they both decided to call it a night and say goodnight.

"Shinji, thanks for the lesson" Kyoko spoke "if you want, I can come over and study at your place"

"It's okay…" Shinji panicked in his head 'I didn't here that, I just didn't here that!'

He quickly came up with an excuse to not allow her over, his dad was in the military after all, and expected his son to be heavily disciplined. It was a semi real fact, his dad didn't want a slacker in the family, but he was also at the same time trying to encourage him to get out more and there is more to life then the arm slaves that he worked on.

"That's too bad" Kyoko replied "how about you come over here instead?"

"What?" Shinji suddenly had those return feelings that this was a setup for something like blackmail or something else sinister "aren't your parents homes?"

"No… I told you the other day, they are on vacation for a while" Kyoko replied "come on, I promise I wont clobber you again!"

"Somehow I think that promise will go out the window"

"Hey, last time, you invited yourself!" Kyoko responded, in a joking glee. She was at odds with him in a non serious fight. But why was she suddenly so comfortable with that?

"Fine…I'll think about it" Shinji gave up and replied,

"Thanks…goodnight" Kyoko replied

"Night" Shinji hung up and took a long breath sigh.

He leaned back on his chair and then looked at the time, 9:30, they have been talking for quite some time, some surprise there considering. Shinji returned his gaze to the computer screen, which by now was littered with PM's from his friends wondering where the otaku went. His absence apparently was well noticed here and sudden disappearances were something of a rare norm on these channels. If someone knew too much, it wasn't too long before they were quietened

Shinji had evaluated that risk, and was obviously not going to stake a claim that he knew the pilot of the white arm slave. Such a story would be hard to believe anyway, and it would probably attach the attention of whoever Sousuke worked for, and he might quietly disappear too. It was a strange would, even stranger by the eccentricities that a normal person like Shinji was capable of finding. The world was truly a strange place.

Location: medical quarters 4f.3r, Merdia Island

Time: 01:33hrs (+10 hrs GMT)

Date: March 12th 2006

In the room, both white and black were sitting at the table in the room look around and wondering what was going to happen next. So far they had been told nothing, seen no one, and apart from the medical check which was at the very least basic for an inspection of their bodies. Both of them had been talking, but no words had been said.

'So what do you think of them' white started

'They sound pitiful, everyone here is either afraid of us, or thinks we're the enemy' black replied,

'that no surprise, how long did that man say, 66 years?' white replied 'you really think that humans would have evolved out of their nature to constantly suspect each other of being wrongful?'

'Even so, you saw how many men and women they had around that boat?'

White looked around their quarters for the thousandth's time, no bugs, no hidden cameras, nothing at all. Were these people even aware of who they were? White was sure that they were worried, otherwise why else were they so worried as to post men and women to guard that submarine they were aboard?

'The human mind needs to know what they see black' she started 'remember, they always have feared what they don't understand'

'Honestly do you think that these humans are any different from the soviet army?'

Black or white were well aware of their past, the last people they remember seeing was a bunch of Russian scientists and army officers looking at them in the glass tube waiting for the cryogenic freezing system to activate. That wasn't by their choice; the girls had worked well with them, explaining everything about nuclear technology to them like if they were children.

But it was to no hope, that man in charge of the Soviet Union, who was a personal sponsor of the project, had bigger things to take care of, like the German army advancing to the Russian home front. The Soviet Union just couldn't supply the red army with weapons as well at the same time provide the girls with the sundries they needed to perfect nuclear weapon technology.

So in order to protect them from capture, the girls were sealed away on a submarine they had acquired from the navy for the use of this project, and towed the submarine to just over the other side of the artic circle to be left to drift. One thing that the army hadn't thought of was how hard it was to find a silent submarine after the war was over. Four years later the war in Europe had ended and the Soviet navy was assigned to find their missing girls.

The submarine was never found and by 1947, the Soviet Union had already acquired the blueprints to building the atomic bomb from spies in America. In 1952, the leader of the Soviet Union returned to his pet project and demanded that they be recovered and put back to work. The Soviet navy sent everything they had to look in every part of the artic sea.

Again they couldn't find the submarine, probably because they didn't anticipate the fact that in less then a month of being set adrift from their soviet handles, the submarine had run aground on ice pack and was slowly being covered over by gradually adding ice to the top of the steel shark. The search failed and resulted in the 'disappearance' of several line officers in the navy.

Now it seems they had been found, but not by the same soviet scientists that they saw last. No, most or all of them would be dead now, if 66 years really did past.

'So what do you think this MITHRIL will do to us?' white asked,

'Probably the same, ask us about what we know, they all have'

'Well, lets wait and see...' white paused '…do you feel that?'

White sensed it first, but she didn't know how to interpret it. All whispered could communicate with each other and the only other whispered white knew of was black sitting in front of her, but now she felt another one and it was coming closer. How come she hadn't noticed it before?

'I feel another one of us is around'

'Don't be so human white' black said impassively 'we are the only whispered left in existence'

Outside the room, down the hall and down two floors in the elevator, Theresa suddenly got a burst of pain in her head. She suddenly dropped to the floor, much to the frightened surprise of the two immediate subordinates.

"Commodore!" Madukus caught her before she hit the steel grating face first.

"I can feel their using, it's strong" Theresa responded.

The trio of commanders exited the lift on the correct floor and started to walk down to the room where their two guests were from. Joining them was Kurz and Melissa to form up as guards for the commodore. At least 15 SRT personal were stationed on this floor all carrying rifles and smoke grenades. It was at the suggestion of the chief of the intelligence department that these subjects were kept under strict surveillance. Theresa would have something to say about that later, whispered could sense if they were surrounded by guards and that would make it harder for them to have trust.

White and black both now felt it and knew it was not their imagination, and before they were able to react, both whispered stopped their wordless conversation momentarily when they heard the door unlock and were about to meet the source of the other contact for the first time.

"Hello, I'm commodore…"

"A whispered!" black pointed at Theresa who undoubtedly was just as surprised as they were. Judging by the reaction that black gave, both Melissa and kurz automatically intervened to protect their commander and friend.

"…don't be so rude" white replied to her sister.

The moment left an awkward silence that the three whispered all felt a little disturbed by the icy situation that had erupted. It took a full minute before someone dared to continue.

"Stand down" Theresa told her two escort guards to move back into the background.

White nodded agreeably to the young girl's actions, at the same time surprised that she was their senior ranking officer. Theresa walked over to the table where black and white had retreated to once the guards were called off.

"I apologise for the security detail we have setup here, ill have different arrangements set up as soon as possible" Theresa started "I'm sorry I haven't introduced myself, I'm commodore Theresa, commanding officer here at the west pacific fleet base"

"And you are a whispered?" black continued to point out the obvious.

Theresa motioned for her guards and both her direct subordinate officers to leave the room. It left Theresa defenceless but on level grounds to talk to these two without them feeling threatened. It was a gamble that she had to play that none of the two were not violate violent types.

"you are indeed correct" Theresa confirmed for them "and I'm not the only one either, there is at least 20 other whispered world wide that are know to exist, although we believe that total number might be double that"

"Since when did humanity get to have more whispered?" black asked the strange question "and don't tell me that humans have finally evolved to that stage! I don't believe it for a minute"

White studied Theresa's expression for a few moments and realised something was amiss in her reactions. It was a correct analyst, even for all the intelligence that she had, Theresa was confused and completely unaware of what black was saying. An unaware whispered? Whited wondered if Theresa was really a whispered, she did have the characteristics thou, so something was out place.

Well, she would have plenty of time to figure out all the fine hairs in this mystery.

"Theresa, May I call you that?" White said

"Of course" the commodore replied "please, I don't really like to have rank get in the way with affairs regarding the whispered"

"Indeed" black said "so who are you then, and where are the Russians?"

Theresa took a moment before responding.

"My naval operations commander had informed me that you were told how long you have probably been encapsulated"

"66 years?" white asked

"Correct, the date today is indeed, march 20th, 2006" Theresa confirmed for her guests "I'm not completely aware on how you ended up where you are though, but you seemed to be important enough to have the pacific fleet of the soviet navy was about to destroy the iceberg that your boat was captured in"

"An iceberg? in the pacific?"

Theresa started to explain carefully the events leading up to and how the operation was carried out. It was both white and black's turn to be confused; they took their submarine aboard another submarine? And what was this arm slave unit she kept referring to? Theresa didn't see or forgot to explain this part better, but had promised to show them first hand the submarine and these arm slave units.

At this point it was getting quite late and Theresa was starting to feel the pressure of her body demanding for sleep. White and black who hadn't really done anything today but stare at the ceiling didn't have this same contrast of energy waste and were quite able to stay awake for some time. White was the first to notice Theresa was showing the signs of fatigue.

"Theresa, shall we discuss this tomorrow, black and myself are very tired right now and we wish to sleep" she lied, but given the manners and trust that this young commander had given them, white felt obliged to give her some reasonable favour in return.

"Oh course madam"

"Crystal"

Theresa was about to ask before she responded

"I'm known as white, but I have been known as crystal once before"

"Ok, crystal" Theresa converted mentally changed her title "I'll have the guards on duty here relieved except for a few which usually are assigned to this floor. Tomorrow, I'll have you transferred to guest quarters and give you a tour of the facility, are there any other concerns?"

"Non except you being a whispered" black reproached her original question,

Theresa tried her best to avoid the question so far. And as much as she didn't intend to ignore her demands, the commodore also had other concerns to attend to.

"Madam..." Theresa started "while I'm not exactly sure why this alarms you, please be aware that I would like make sure that I will investigate the matter if you deem it necessary"

Black tried to ignore the kind response, she was more annoyed that her host refused to just tell, but by her own evaluation' it seemed this Commodore Theresa wasn't even aware herself who they were or what she was herself. The commodore bid them a pleasant evening and left their quarters. Crystal looked over at black for a moment before starting to speak with her mouth.

"You could've been a little more polite"

"But she claims to be a whispered, and yet she isn't even aware of the truth!" Black replied, "and since when was your name Crystal?"

"A scientist did in 1892"

Location: Tokyo Jindai Municipal High School, Tokyo, Japan

Time: 09:02hrs (8+hrs GMT)

Date: March 12th, 2006

"Again!" Kaname hammered Sousuke's face into the ground with her foot.

What had happened could've had not been any more disturbingly funny. Once a month, a delivery man would come and deliver a supply of various office supplies, copy sheet paper, pens, pencils and the other sundries that teachers require to operate a daily routine at school. This however did go down well with Sousuke whom, when seeing a unknown man carting a large sum of boxes into the teachers office, placed his mind to suspicious

His war trained mind automatically trained belief concluded that a time bomb or chemical weapon was inside a box and that the enemy were going to try and take out the 'commanding officers of' the school. Sousuke made it his intention to insure that no one would be killed and moved the boxes into the open and detonated them with plastic explosives.

"How do you expect this school to function when you repeatedly blow up the supplies?"

Despite the regular interval occurrence of this, Sousuke had only blown up the supplies three times before and every time they did, the school had to re order the entire package, as well as repair damage to whatever else was damaged. Somehow each time, he managed to get away with his 'security measures'. Kaname feel weak on he legs again, somehow she felt like all those months ago she woke up in the wrong universe and ever since; has been forced to deal with ever growing reality of Sousuke's antics and other strange habits that attached themselves to this war minded otaku.

Strangely enough, everyone else didn't exactly take the same amount of dedication that Kaname had to getting angry at Sousuke for his repeated mistakes; they had their fun out of the few explosions that occurred on a daily basis. It had a unique tenancy to cancel classes, and a lot of students liked that. For the junior grades, it meant free time to extend their lunch break. For the senior year, it meant time to get some sleep that they lost from cram schools.

It gave the staff a headache as well, but it seems that the people that could expel Sousuke were also the same people that seemed to have the nicest cars in the parking lot recently.

"Sousuke, why did you just blow up everything in the office? And don't tell me there was a bomb in there because I don't believe it!"

"Terrorists take advantage of the fact that normal civilians never expect it to happen to them" Sousuke defended his already lost argument "this school is sloppy in not checking all items that import to this facility"

Kaname's rebuttal to his debate was in the form of another whack to the head. This fight had to end and Kaname had already used up all the energy reserved for class on Sousuke in five minutes. A recent problem that plagued her was that Kaname relied heavily on her energy to stay awake in class; any over use of it usually resulted in kaname falling asleep in class. If she was using all of her energy, first thing in the morning on Souske, this tended to use up all of the built up alertness and energy in a very short period of time.

At this moment, Kyoko and Shinji both arrived to school, to find that Sousuke had conveniently had created another day off for them. The teaching staff usually couldn't operate without their gear; and when this happened, they called for a whole day of study hall, or just cancelled school.

"…and to think I thought I'd be late for school today" Shinji said to himself,

What was so convenient was that the rest of this week was meant to be a holiday. Sousuke had just started it a day earlier for everyone, everyone but Kaname thought about how convenient this was for them. She again wondered who she annoyed in her pat life to get this torment and to be surrounded by idiots.

"Well, how's to say we go to the mall?" Kyoko said patting her friend on the back.

"Why…why…I hate going to school…but why?" Kaname sobbed,

"Be careful for what you wish for I suppose"

"I never wished for this!"

In the meantime, Sousuke answered his phone which started to ring momentarily. Shinji noticed this and paid attention.

"Uruz 7 here" Sousuke started, "understood…understood…yes commodore…understood…with kaname?"

He stood there listening to the other person for a minute being briefed in the spot. By this point Kaname noticed he was on the phone as well; the only time he ever used his mobile was to call her, or to be rung by MITHRIL. No doubt guessing it was the latter; Kaname prepared herself for his speech.

"As well?...you read the report I issued on the 10th correct?...understood…understood…" Sousuke glanced a look at Kyoko and Mizuki "are you sure?...they aren't…understood commodore"

'Tessa is making the call?' Kaname noticed the oddity that the commanding officer made the recall order instead of Sousuke's boss, kalian.

"Understood commodore, Uruz 7 out" Sousuke hung up "Kaname, may I talk to you"

"Sure, why not" Kaname replied "I'm right in front of you after all!"

"Okay" Sousuke continued "Tessa wants to have you visit her at the base, preferably be the end of today"

Kaname was use to the idea of Sousuke disappearing for a few days, so that didn't surprise her anymore. But never did Sousuke ever have to bring Kaname along with him, by the sounds of the conversation, it didn't sound like they were going alone either.

A/N: sorry for my lateness, but its here finally. It kinda feels weird suddenly dragging everyone out of school and to Merdia Island on a Tuesday, but give Sousuke a ton of TNT and he can make a week holiday appear.


	8. A Commodore's day

**The Black Whispered**

**Chapter 8 – A Commodore's day**

"She is called the _Tuatha de Daanan_" Theresa introduced Black and White to the submarine they were rescued on.

"impressive" white said in surprised, the _Tuatha de Daanan_ or TDD-1 as everyone knew the vessel was the current pride and joy of the MITHRIL naval division, nothing they had in their weapons arsenal could even start to measure up the sheer majesty of the stream triple hulled warship. Theresa had to meet the new captain of her vessel this afternoon with commander Mardukas and the chief director of the intelligence department.

Theresa still found it odd that the head of the intelligence department was calling the shots here regarding the appointment of operations department personnel. She knew that admiral Borha was quite annoyed from the phone conversation she had with this morning. The thing was Admiral Borha had already picked a captain for the _Pillar of Autauam _and a replacement captain for Theresa's ship. But the intelligence department director had somehow, in the frank honestly of incompetence; managed to over ride the authority of the head of the operations department.

The intelligence department chief had demoted the applicants in favour of his own, because they had more experience and were more trustworthy the ones that admiral Borha was picking out. But it was apparent was that they were more trustworthy to the intelligence department and not the operations department they were technically assigned to. To admiral Borha, it felt like the intelligence department director was creating his own little cult leadership inside MITHRIL, which further made the situation displeasing to the operations department chief.

MITHRIL's best were being short changed for a bunch of unreliable, but loyal to the wrong commander. It was a shame what the operations department was becoming, they did all the work in this organisation and now the intelligence department were only a few steps away from total control over the department, MITHRIL needed soldiers, not spooks.

"Theresa, you say this vessel is a submarine and yet, you accommodate for facilities similar to that of the aircraft carrier, and it can carry rockets?"

"That is correct"

Theresa had spent a considerable amount of time going into detail explaining the history and the technological and social advancements since then. While black was discussed at the events in which sparked from the birth of the atomic bomb, White had become increasingly interested in the latter aspects of the history. Economics and information were now preventing wars to a certain degree and the world had reached a point where it was no longer threatened with the ease that propaganda had misinforming those into wars.

"What are these machines?" black pointed at a hatch on the top of the docked submarine. There were lifting out one of the Arm Slave assigned to ship. Theresa then noticed that alongside the dock just about everything was being taken out.

"What in lords…." Theresa murmured loudly and started running for the lift down to the first floor. White and black looked at each other and started to investigate the possibility that something was out of place.

"Something out of place Theresa?" Black asked

"Indeed" Theresa entered the elevator and selected the ground floor, a minute later; Theresa was confronted by a group of officers, both operations and intelligence department. Mardukas was creaming it into this young man and demanding an answer.

"Commodore Testarossa" Commander Mardukas turned and saluted his superior.

"What's going on, why are all the arm slaves being removed?"

"Orders by the intelligence department chief director" a staff sergeant with a clipboard replied

"Let me read" Theresa grabbed the clipboard from the sergeant's hand. Theresa scanned the paper for a few seconds and then looked up at the two. Before the commodore could blow the head off on the young man; a captain from the intelligence department spoke up.

"We figured with _Pillar of autuam _almost ready to sail, we should bother transferring a unit over"

"_Pillar of Autuam _won't be ready for another 6 weeks captain!" Theresa rebutted "in that time we could have anything from a small scale terrorist cell to the apocalypse!"

Mardukas nodded as well as several onlookers from the operations department, mainly crew from _Tuatha de Daanan_. All morning their day was disturbed by random rumors about the last few days, they had heard stories as far strange as that Theresa had been fired from her job, only to be reinstated hours later. Many of the crew and staff stationed here at Merdia were loyal to their commander here, and were close to annoyed with the way things were going on. The intelligence departments were all over this thing in the submarine like it was something of their concern.

But now things were going crazy, intelligence officers were calling the shots all of a sudden, ordering the removal of arm slaves on the _Tuatha de Daanan _was just one problem. They were all over this base; they had taken complete control of the long range communications channel and monitored every inner base phone call. A minor investigation into a simple cover-up of the intelligence department's blunder of the Pacific Christmas incident had turned into a complete undermining of the west pacific fleet and high command weren't doing a damn thing about it.

"Now you listen here captain!" Theresa gave her best commanding voice "I'm in charge of the operations of this base and every item assigned to it, these vessels are under my command still, nothing will change that"

"Madam" the captain continued on the defense "these orders came from the captain of the _Tuatha de Daanan_"

Theresa was about to say she was the captain; but forgot that had that changed since she got back. She then started her defense

"We have spare arm slaves and harriers on store here to outfit 4 vessels if you have forgotten or is the intelligence department that stupid to forget that little detail" Theresa, like anyone in the operations department, always liked to call the intelligence department 'stupid' when the opportunity came.

"I will talk to the captain myself later on this matter, but make it clear that when it comes to the operations of this base, I'm the person you'll answer to, have you got that clear!?"

While it wasn't apparent, the people overhearing were silently applauding their commander's comments; about time someone stood up and gave these spooks a run for their money. Theresa turned to her second in command for this section.

"Make sure they do this, if they don't, report directly to me"

"yes madam" Mardukas then turned to the staff sergeant "alright you, you heard the commodore, unless you wish to scrub the hull of this ship with your toothbrush, I want you to have every single arm slave loaded away and ready for combat, I want to be able to invade the Falklands if I choose to!"

Theresa sighed off as she entered the elevator, then realizing that her guests were now missing. She looked around for only a second to find them following her around like lost children. While white had an understanding look, black was slightly confused; A whispered giving order? It was just unheard of.

"I'm sorry…" Theresa bowed "while technology and some social aspects have changed, militaries still have a slow organization pace"

"Strange…" Black nodded "to see a whispered give the orders instead of taking them"

"Well, too many new here; they find my age the strange thing, not everyone here knows I'm a whispered"

"I see…"

Theresa exited the lift and escorted her guests to the spot they were at before, from here, it commanded a good view of the submarine bay and the loading yards adjacent on either side. She sighed at the problems that filled her new role, she missed her old command. She was still in charge of the base, but she didn't have spooks messing up her yards like this.

Theresa continued to answer their infinite supply of questions and answered each one. For two very quiet individuals, they were quite interested more in the social aspects then the technology that the 21st century so far processed. Theresa was in this aspect surprised. It probably was of no surprise, given that their previous captors were communists and the treatment of the scientists by the red army was a very well known aspect of the technology developed in the Soviet Union.

Each of them already had shown their specialist interests. White seemed to ask more questions along the lines of the social agenda of MITHRIL and its purposes, while black asked questions that related more and more along the lines of the military roles that MITRHIL and technical questions about the hardware here; Especially when she saw the Arm Slave for the first time.

"Theresa, I sense something is wrong with you" White asked "does it relate to the argument we witnessed before?"

"I can see you can read minds" Theresa sighed, not realizing that white had actually done that. Theresa had finished showing them the submarines, the hangers; and she felt she needed to talk in private in her office. They had both agreed, Theresa noticed that White seemed to understand strangely what she was thinking and agreed very honestly towards helping her host out. Black on the hand looked bored, it appeared that she was the more active of the two here.

Theresa had wondered about getting her to see a training exercise with M-9's later, but she would already have the intelligence department going nuts at her for showing off MITHRIL's two most expensive weapons in front of complete strangers.

"Does this intelligence department you spoke of hate the whispered?" White asked.

She looked over at black who was staring down at the hanger.

"You could say that" Theresa entered another life and pressed for the top floor, from there she could walk back to her office "I actually think they hate me more to be quite honest"

"Why, because your whispered?" Black said again, assuming the answer. Theresa remained silent the rest of the way.

* * *

Location: a passenger plane, somewhere over the pacific

Time: 14:49hrs(+9 GMT)

Date: March 22nd, 2006

It was now assured to Kaname that she could actively define that the world was not just making fun of her; it was outright making a mockery of her. Now Kaname hated tests, but she hated putting off the inevitable anyway. This did that, and Kaname already mad at the announcement that followed. In less then an hour of the explosion, a public announcement came that the staff were going to suspend classes and the exams until after the spring holiday break.

It had been long established that the senior staff of this place acted far too calmly for their school to be blown apart on a daily basis. What Kaname or even Sousuke wasn't aware was that MITHRIL's operations section was effectively paying the administrator's retirement fund to remain quiet and to the quite obvious part; not expel Sousuke. Theresa had arranged the whole incident today; she arranged her operations department people to tamper handle the crate causing Sousuke to react, then rang the head of the school and the superintendent to close the school on the account of a 'poor health and safety evaluation'. With the school closed, Sousuke then had no excuse to return home, and Kaname would have no moral obligations to forgo going to Merdia Island.

Now, some six hours after that, Kaname found herself on a small private plane that MITHRIL owned for ferrying their operatives and VIP personnel between Merdia Island and all the countries in the Asia pacific area. If she knew that she was going to the topical islands in the pacific, Kaname may have forgiven the morning incident. She almost imagined if that was true, the young sergeant taking her away from her normal humdrum life a week on a sunny tropical beach…

But reality, as surreal as it seemed, she wasn't. Instead she was going Sousuke's home, the largest naval station in MITHRIL and a large reserve accommodation for arm slaves and a respective and private training ground. Kaname could imagine it now, the smell of oil and gun powder on every square inch of the base, the jungle booby trapped with every kind of mine and trip wire explosive that would make Sousuke's schoolyard warfare a simple affair.

What made it more annoying was that she wasn't going alone with the said sergeant. Theresa had opened the invitation to Shinji, Kyoko and Mizuki to come visit. There was the alternate motive that the intelligence department might have probably a talk with the said three students and make them sign the standard non disclosure forms that are required. But it they were nothing but outsiders in the affair, well so was she, but wasn't the point. Kaname only knew of tropical islands to have golden sand beaches and glamorous hotels that only the elite of the world's cocktail and posh circuit could afford.

Kaname pondered about the last time that she had gone to Merdia Island. How could she forget that episode; first she and Sousuke were diverted from landing at the base and, while strapped to Sousuke, they had jumped into the middle of the ocean, just to brought underwater in a massive steel tube that Theresa called home. Then all hell broke loose, she witnessed other side of Sousuke's life; the true edge of combat and is profession. But that was nothing compared to afterwards when those three men tricked an entire army and almost took MITHRIL's most expensive asset and its 200 crew to the bottom of the ocean.

This was also when she saw Sousuke kill someone with his bare hands, it wasn't in the comfort of an arm slave fighting some perverted faceless solider. He did it, with no remorse, no mercy, and no flinch. It was then that Kaname noticed the differences between him and her. At school; his actions subduing bullying and other intended school yard mischief were almost incredible on their own, but when compared to the actions that Sousuke did to do what he was paid to do; nothing he did at school could match the intensity of the reality of half the things he did.

Kaname decided to give up sulking in the corner of the cabin and looked over at the rest of the bunch. Sousuke was sitting in a single seat forward typing away on his laptop, probably on some report for MITHRIL. Kyoko, Mizuki and Shinji all were playing card; they seemed to have no concern about where they were going. Merdia Island, Kaname last thought, had nothing remotely close to a 2 star hotel setting; the entire base was designed for military action. Everything was either guns or armour.

But somehow, either Sousuke was an excellent salesman or, out of the pure insanity of the situation, all three decided to go on their own free will. Kaname looked around at her friends to guess their reasons for even going. Shinji was easy to assume; he was magnetically attracted to the military and anything close to it. MITHRIL Kaname knew; was its own army, with some of the most advance systems they had for defeating anything from a small terrorist cell, all the way to defending against a small countries entire land army, as it once proved to do.

Mizuki's stated reasons were quite hypocritical of her objective. It was true that Merdia Island's male to female ratio was unfavourable for the men. But it was a given sacrifice for the duty that each of them were there for. This was a workplace, and while it wasn't the same a maze of cubicles, it still followed the same orthotic rules that any large company followed. There was also the quite obvious statement, everyone here, save Sousuke and Theresa were legal aged adults. None of them, not even Kurz, would be crazy enough to have an affair with an underage high school student. Mizuki might come to regret coming here.

Kyoko was the one Kaname couldn't figure out however; she had no reason for being here. Her only real use was to act as Kaname's sidekick, like always. But something told her that Kyoko was going to leave the reserved in that manner, ever since she found out about the secret, Kyoko played some distance between herself and Kaname, was this a level of distrust from being lied to? Kaname couldn't help it; how else would you tell your best friend that the weirdo in class is a crack solider with years of experience in the field?

"Hey Kaname" Mizuki started "Are you done sulking yet? Come play cards!"

Kaname felt that this was kind of strange, none of them were afraid. 'Maybe I should tell them exactly what happened last time I went to Merdia Island…' Kaname erased that idea quickly enough 'Stupid, that will scare them too much, hell it still scares me'

Kaname wondered for a moment if there was really a point in worrying, in a few hours, they would be in the underground hanger of Merdia Island, getting a first taste of MITHRIL's best and finest.

* * *

Location: Commodore Theresa Testarossa's office, Media Island

Time: 15:44hrs (+10GMT)

Date: March 22nd, 2006

They entered her office and the twins sat down on a set of couch opposite her desk. Theresa went to her desk first to find that a message had been sent to her about something. She read it for a moment and sharply cursed herself silently. The applicant captain of the _Tuatha de Daanan_ wanted to see her to protest her override of orders regarding his rearrangement of the equipment. She put the message down and left it to talk to her guests.

"The intelligence department acts fast" Theresa noted "only 1 hour and they are complaining already"

"Is it because you're a whispered" Black asked again,

"Not really…" Theresa replied, noticing the sarcasm that she presented "the thing was, the director hates me on the basis I've outsmarted him on two occasions"

"Outsmarted, how?" black wondered why that was such an important thing 'why is this girl getting teased for that?'

"last December, when I was still assigned to the submarine you saw below, we managed to sneak out of docks and perform a raid on a passenger ship and managed to uncover some weapons and key personnel from our enemy" Theresa perked her tone for a sec "we managed to convince the entire intelligence department that my ship and its crew were back here at a Christmas party"

"You fooled your own intelligence department, why?" black asked

"Well…" Theresa slumped down, "…you have to remember that people tend to have different ideas how to do the same thing, the intelligence department however…they wanted me to ignore the finding and let the soviet navy find it"

"The soviet navy was looking for it?" black asked

"The soviet navy weren't going to rescue you" Theresa sighed "the vessels they had were their most well armed and fastest, they would've targeted the iceberg and destroy it, even if you were in it"

Theresa's intelligence assessment was bias; she only made that conclusion on the factor that the soviet navy had launched only their fastest and most well armed vessels. She didn't decide to add the fact that their pacific fleet didn't have any known vessels known to aid in rescue operations of that nature. Even if the soviet fleet managed to get there, they wouldn't have been able to recover the submarine. It was better they did loose it to enemy hands.

"I suppose that's what they would think is best" black said "they always were weak in that respect"

Theresa felt uncomfortable about this, she had taken them down on a guided to of the base, and now she was in her office, trapped and wondering how to get herself out of this. The whole tour had been friendly enough and white was understanding, every time they bought up the soviets; it seemed to strike a cord with black, like she was feeling insulted by this young commanders view on the communist regime. Before Theresa managed to wonder how to get herself out of this, her phone buzzed.

"Excuse me" Theresa got up and walked to her desk "Hello…I see…I understand, thank you"

White and black looked curiously over at the commander, both exchanging the same thoughts 'How does such a young girl handle this busy life?'

Theresa sounded depressed for a moment before she continued to hide her thoughts, although that attempt was hopeless to attempt to a pair of twins that would make a poker champion wince. Again it was white's turn to play the friendly hand.

"I take it that your duties as a commodore of MITHRIL will bring you away from us again"

"my apologizes white" Theresa spoke sincerely "please insure, id be more then willing to miss this meeting, I have some other people also to greet at the aircraft hanger in a few hours time"

"I see" White replied "what shall we do then?"

"For now, ill have you assigned the guest quarters that I promised" Theresa spoke "and I've given you visitor passes so you can access any part of the base. But please, I advise caution with interaction with the male members of my squadron may be misleading, if you meet anyone who mistreats you, please make a note of it and inform me as soon as possible"

White acknowledged her new friend's intentions and her prospect to protect them from danger. It felt a little restrictive, but this was Theresa's base and she couldn't argue with her. Black felt this was a little extreme, but given white seemly absent reaction of distrust in this young commander, she decided to withdraw complaint in front of this particular person.

"Thank you" White bowed; an odd gesture given Thesesa's understanding of them "may we be able to run into you later?"

"That tends to be impossible at times" Theresa noted with a matter-of-fact tone "but if you wish to join me to meet the other arrivals in the next few hours, I might be able to meet up"

"I'm sure we'll manage" black spoke for her sister.

"I'll have the quartermaster fit you with the necessary equipment"

Theresa saw out the two guests, afraid that the days plan and the event before was enough to give the girls a wrong impression of the MITHRIL, the people here and herself. But she was left to worry too much about things she just couldn't control; there was something about them that made her imply a degree of caution. It felt like there was something mythical about them that judged her actions.

Theresa turned to return her desk, her next task she wasn't looking forward to. The captain of the …correction, candidate for the captaincy had demanded to meet the commodore when his orders to change the complement of aircraft and arm slaves. She took another second to straighten her tie and compose herself for the tongue lashing she was about to project into this spook sailor. Theresa now had to meet this person for the first time. She picked up the phone and pressed a button

"Bring the next person in" Theresa said then rung up.

The doors opened to relieve a young man entering. Immediately the commodore both disliked and distrusted this officer. She had looked at is record before and was ashamed that MITRHIL had gone to hire this kind of person. Commander Jacob B. Michelson. Age 27, formally served for the United States navy, he had severed on 7 submarines as an Executive officer, 4 vessels were missile boats, but he never commanded one. He had service medal for his actions in the 5th Middle East war, and his educational grades at Annapolis were of the top grade.

Despite this however; he had been involved in several court marshal incidents, mainly on various incidents regarding his investigations into officers acting out of line and breaking rules and regulations during combat. He was even seen to have had Mormon sonar watchmen discharged and sent of to high security prison when he managed to convince the judge advocate general that the young man was a communist spy.

Theresa was not impressed with this; it seemed he had no understanding of warfare tactics, despite his record. He seemed more concerned about the discipline and constant suspicion of disloyalty in the crew. That wasn't something familiar among the officers on MITHRIL's own ships. The crew trusted the officers to run the boat and the officers relied on the crew to help run the boat. It was a simple process of trust that made MITHRIL's naval division crew the most reliable in the world.

If he planned to command her _Tuatha de Daanan_ like this, MITHRIL would have to revaluate the success rate of their missions.

"Commodore Testarossa" the young man extended his hand to great his new boss.

"Captain Michelson" Theresa returned the jester, and winced when the captain almost crushed her delicate hand. Theresa hid her pain and sat down behind her desk and looked over the captain carefully. Somehow the man reminded him of why the United States navy seemed to have so many incidents of mutiny and insubordination within its own ranks.

"Captain, I'm sure your aware of my orders regarding the complement of gear your ship was assigned to carry" Theresa started "there is a very good reason why I have these things assigned to your vessel commander, and I will not have any vessel in my squadron go to sea under armed, under manned and lacking the proper readiness for the duties we carry out"

"Commodore Testarossa" the captain rebutted quickly "the _Tuatha de Daanan _was ineffectively wasting deck space on transport assets and land only weapons, while I recognize the role of them, it is far easier and more efficient to reduce things to only as many as you need"

"Captain, you removed 9 arm slaves and 5 transport helicopters, as well as 4 of the anti-tank attack helicopters and 4 out of 6 SRT teams, you got rid of everything you needed; why?"

"Commodore, in my own belief _Tuatha de Daanan _is a sea combat vessel, not a transport vessel for some marines; its armaments and design only aid MITHRIL in attacking sea going enemies, there is too much risk involved in launching assets into a enemy area when we can simply launch cruise missiles into the area"

"Captain, I'm not exactly sure who has informed you on how MITHRIL operates, but we most certainly do not operate in that manner" Theresa was getting furious, but quietly maintained her demeanor. "You have read the reports on the ship's history?"

"I have" Jacob was annoyed "and in my own belief, each one of the incidents followed a variable amount of flaws, one in particular I came to interest was the submarine hijacking incident"

"That incident was ruled out as a failure of the intelligence department to background checks"

The captain had decided that his new boss wasn't going to stand down and listen to this insulting lecture about her ability to perform. Theresa had every whim in her mind to dismiss this commander, but she had read a dispatch that admiral borha had approved the appointment of the commands himself. Old uncle Borha finally caved into the pressure that the intelligence department was pushing, it was now up to Theresa to handle these maniacs that the intelligence chief had employed.

"Captain, now while I don't doubt your record" Theresa spoke "I do wish to remind you that here, there is a certain degree of intolerance towards officers that will push the crews and constantly suspect them of wrong doing. I will not approve this, and I will deny your further requests to replace the tactical officer and the communications officer on _Tuatha de Daanan_"

"Commodore…your officers lack experience"

"All the officers on that ship I have worked with long enough to know they will not act out of line under any circumstances and I will not permit you to judge them by their service record" Theresa finished off the defeated captain's defense "are we understood on this matter captain?"

"Understood…" the captain admitted defeat from this girl.

"very well, I will not detain you any longer" Theresa finished and stood "I except to inspect the _Tuatha de Daanan_ in two weeks time, your are, under no circumstance to permit any further changes in the complement of the boat unless I have approved of it"

Captain Michelson acknowledged the order, saluted and left the office. Once the doors were closed, Theresa let out a huge sight of relief and slumped back into her chair. Today had become one nightmare. First she made a fool of herself in found oh what she felt were two very important guests. She had to do all kinds of things to make Kalinin and Mardukas to not have them detained any longer and to not have SRT personnel escort them like prisoners. The whole incident was the highlight of her false realization on how much she was making a fool of herself showing of weapons and technology like a over excited kid.

Now this captain Michelson was on the warpath to change the fighting tactics that MITHRIL employed to act more along the lines of that the United States navy employed when they were ordered to carpet bomb a target. What made Theresa disappointed was she had no way of dismissing them without a plasuable reason. Then she had to pick the captain for the _Pillar of autumn_ which was near entering active service. She could pick the best captain out of the three to command that ship, but then the intelligence department might just pick their person instead.

However, she had enough problems with the captain replacing _Tuatha de Daanan_ to really concern herself with interviewing them for the job they had already been confirmed to take. She would cancel those meetings today and have the 1st applicant interviewed tomorrow, this time she would try to have commander Mardukas present to control her anger.

* * *

Location: Officer quarters 5-E (Commodore Theresa Tesserossa's quarters)

Time: 15:15hrs

Date: March 22nd, 2006

Theresa decided to return to her quarters, her own personnel private home that permitted her to be relieved of the pressures her rank constantly weighted down her ability to be a teenager. Occasionally Melissa would be there to welcome her home, thou of course she hadn't been invited. Theresa was just that she became use her 'big sister' to welcome her home and hear her problems while she drank her daily dose of booze.

Melissa enjoyed her talks with her, given that she was friends with her boss had some strange advantages; she could get drinks sent to her quarters and people would be under the assumption that Theresa was ordering them. This had sparked some rather nasty rumors that the commodore was an alcoholic depressant and she constantly drank at the end of the day. Theresa had only been drunk once in her life, and the experience was of one she did not wish to repeat anytime soon.

However when Theresa walked into her own room, she was not greeted by the loud mouthed former marine. White was sitting on the couch looking around the plush quarters of the commanding officer.

"White?!" Theresa stammered back

"Theresa, welcome back" white replied, slightly surprised at the reaction. Theresa wondered for a moment how it was that she knew where her room was. Of course; she had told them. Theresa really needed to remember to lock her quarters, but the ditzy commodore kept forgetting such a simple thing; she assumed that if she did, Melissa would just crack it open a few hours later.

"I guessed that the first place you would go when you were on break would be your quarters" White spoke "I apologies, I should have simply waited outside"

"It's quite alright" Theresa took off her kakis blazer and let down on the end of the couch. "I come to get use to surprise visitors here"

"I see"

Theresa again was stuck, she was afraid to admit it, but she felt over empowered and embarrassed by white. She was a whispered; the same as her, yet; she had this degree of something that made Theresa, a delicate young lady herself; feel a need of inferiority to white and black.

"Theresa"

"Yes?"

"I do not understand your fear of us"

Theresa stopped thinking about that and hesitated at an answer. Why was she feeling fear and inferior to these two? It was like white was the daughter of the king and Theresa was merely a poor match stick girl. She didn't know why she felt this present need to please them.

"My apologies white" Theresa replied as honestly as she could "sometimes you meet someone and you don't know how to treat them…"

White nodded and noticed that Theresa just didn't know how to interact with her, she was afraid of just being too disrespectful. If only Theresa knew how much she was the best host she had met in quite some time.

"I'll prepare some tea for us" Theresa got up, stifling a groan as she rubbed her neck.

"Are you alright?" White asked

"I'm quite alright" Theresa replied "thank you"

She then went to her cabinet and retrieved out a few cups and her electric kettle. Despite the stylish design of her quarters, there was no real kitchen for her to use. She went to the bathroom to fill it up; a few moments later she returned with the kettle and plugged it in to start boiling the water.

"So where is black?"

"She said that she wanted to go walk around the hangers and the enlisted personnel quarters" White replied, looking curiously as Theresa again was rubbing her left arm.

"I take it she was bored with the whole thing?"

"Not really" White replied "Black is always interested in what humans develop from whispered ideas"

Theresa gave white a curious look; the whole sentence just seemed out of place. She was human, and she was pretty sure that white and black were as well. Theresa noted the chirping noise and kneeled down to retrieve her china set's teapot. Again she stifled a groan in her lower back this time. She knew why; her sleeping habits were nothing too great, she constantly slept on her stomach and her arm all the time. It was no surprise they hurt in the morning. But she got use to it and lived with the pain, she didn't want Melissa trying to un-kink her back, she felt that she would yank her arm off.

Theresa sat down and poured her guest something to drink. It was nice they could talk like this, but what about she couldn't exactly know, she guessed she'd have to wait for her friend to ask a question.

"Theresa, I know it sounds weird from a stranger like me, but if you wish for me to, I can help un-kink the left arm and your lower back"

"No, I'm quite alright" Theresa immediately rejected the offer; it wasn't that she disliked it; she just didn't want to have make her guest fix something so trivial.

"Are your sure?"

"Yes…" Theresa replied "you're my guest, please don't worry about it"

"Please, you have done more then enough for us" White rebutted "and I would be considered ungrateful if I can't repay that"

Theresa found some assurance in that, and at the same time figured out how she should treat them. Theresa nodded approval and readied herself for the style of treatment she got from her doctor every time; painful. White thought about this for a moment, where she was from, this gesture wasn't considered abnormal, but Theresa obviously was scared to even admit she wanted to accept it.

She walked over and watched as Theresa simple turned to face her back to one side, she felt only a need to loosen her neck tie and that was it. White sat down next to her and started to examine Theresa's body up close. It was exactly as she had expected, thin and delicate. White first hovered her hands over the commodore's upper back; incidentally starting without even touching her.

Theresa didn't know how to describe it, but her face and arms froze with incredible amounts of some sort of ecstasy relief. The muscles somehow managed to loose up so quickly, but at the same time, she noticed that she hadn't been touched yet.

"your body is pretty stiff up here" White started proper contact and started to work on her left arm's joint muscles, still pursuing the same, or even more power in whatever she was doing. Theresa didn't expect this to be so, nice, whatever she was doing, it was not how they normally did it. She wondered how she was doing this,

"It's an old technique that whispered can do, both to another whispered and to normal humans" white started to explain, as if she knew what Theresa was about to say "it requires a degree of understanding in mental telepathy"

'Telepathy? Since when did that aid in this sort of thing?' Theresa however couldn't ignore the facts and her body was demanding her mind shut down and let it focus on this. She couldn't help it and closed her eyes relieved already, wondering how much more she would do. White noticed her head slumping and she started to slow down the way she did it.

'How could Theresa not know how to do this?' she wondered to herself. It was quite simple; she was an uninformed whispered at the very least. For the next ten minutes, Theresa somehow felt every part of her body loosened and at the same time her mind felt like it had shut down and only was thinking in terms of senses, it seemed to completely reenergize everything, her body and it also felt like a young body again.

White finally stopped her strange massage and backed away. Theresa noted the ending and resumed sitting back, her body strangely weak for five minutes. She had no idea what it was, but the science and research department would be interested over it.

"Thank you…" Theresa spoke "that was certainly a…strange method"

'Method?' White wondered by that, she did everything the way her mother taught her, why did it seem that…

White thought about it for a moment, Theresa had the mental telepathy of a whispered, she knew some rather advance things, and she somehow was annoyed by the fact that this young girl seemed to have no idea about anything else regarding whispered way of life. According to Theresa there was another whispered coming into visit them later today.

"Theresa" She asked her new friend "can you tell me about your past?"

* * *

A/N: hmmm, im not so comfortable about that last part. i dunno, i ran out of time anyway, so...yea, if you guys hate it, ill figure something else out. Chapters should be per fortnight for now on, trying my best to keep a steady update pattern.

please read and review!


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